


Cynosure

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Selcouth Timestamps [4]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Canon Typical Violence, Choking, Established Relationship, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Nostalgia, PTSD, Role Reversal, breath play, selcouth timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-04-25 06:39:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4950427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You are a delight,” Will informs him, kissing the tip of Hannibal’s nose before settling to his heels again and taking a step back to allow Hannibal to move past and get ready. “Thank you.”</i>
</p><p>  <i>“You will eat it,” Hannibal says as he removes his apron, turning to watch Will as graceful steps carry him backward. Will draws a breath but holds it as Hannibal’s brow lifts, and he hangs his apron. “That was not a question.”</i></p><p>  <i>“I will,” Will tells him. </i></p><p>Years and years on after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3328544">Selcouth</a>, we see how our boys are doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lovely Taj. They wanted a story about the Selcouth boys, where Will hits a bad point in his life, and during a particularly involved scene, does not hear or heed Hannibal's safeword. So here is the lead up and fall out of that. Happy ending, we guarantee it!
> 
> Beta'd by our fearless and fierce darling [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

There is an empty bottle of whiskey in the sink. Hannibal stares at it for a long time before taking it up to toss into the recycling, quietly closing the door to the cupboard so he doesn’t wake Will on the sofa.

He’d been away. Again. On a case out in Michigan. Hannibal hadn’t expected him home until later the following evening, yet here he is, spread out on the couch, an arm over his eyes and one of the dogs curled up at his side, protective and comfortable. His greying hair looks lighter in the morning sun. Hannibal watches him a moment more before moving to the kitchen again to start on coffee.

Will doesn’t wake at the smell of it, he only wakes when Hannibal kneels beside him to take his pulse, careful cool fingers against Will’s wrist. Will hums, frowning, and turns into the touch, shifting to pull Hannibal’s fingers between his own, then drag them closer to his lips to kiss them.

“What time is it?”

“Not yet eight,” Hannibal tells him. After a pause, he continues. “It’s Saturday.”

Will’s curse sighs against Hannibal’s fingers and he stretches them across the older man’s lips in response. A gentle stroke, but Will’s deepening breath begins to settle towards sleep and Hannibal inches closer on his knees.

“I’ve made coffee,” he says. In his voice is a thrum of eagerness he can’t suppress, but it does well to mask the rising vibration of nerves beneath his skin. “It will keep but I’m due at the office by noon and -”

“Thank you, Hannibal.”

A small smile blooms and fades unseen. The noisy clock on the mantle ticks away a minute by which Hannibal paces his heart before he leans near. Will smells of sweat. Whiskey, seeping through his skin. He smells of nightmares numbed and Hannibal makes a little sound unto himself before brushing his lips against Will’s brow.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he says. “We’ve all missed you terribly.”

Will’s smile is small but entirely genuine, and though he doesn’t open his eyes he knows just where Hannibal is. Just over a decade together has honed their senses to the other, shared empathy and shared sensation. Almost otherworldly.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” Will sighs finally, taking a deep breath and holding it as he stretches. “I came home just after three.”

Blue eyes open again, the lines at their corners growing deeper as Will’s pleasure at being home settles into every pore and breath. He licks his lips.

“You look good. God, I’ve missed you. How long was I gone this time?”

“It would have been a week tomorrow,” Hannibal tells him, sitting back on his heels. He ignores Buster’s fussing as he leans in closer and finally settles to his hip, head against Will’s chest and eyes on him. He doesn’t ask about the case. He rarely does, but for those moments when he can sense that Will wants to talk and snarl and rage about them, and even then in vaguery. “You should eat,” he says.

“I’m not hungry right now.”

Hannibal’s eyes draw up in a slight smile. “But you will be glad that you did, to absorb the whiskey.”

“Don’t remind me,” mutters Will, and Hannibal hums gentle disapproval that settles to a near-purr as Will slips a hand through his hair. “How’s work?”

“Rewarding,” Hannibal says. “Tiring. Daily I am reminded that although the change in path from surgery to psychiatry is less physically grueling, it is no less fraught.”

“You are extraordinary,” Will sighs, watching Hannibal, entirely fond, entirely adoring, stroking his hair as Hannibal’s eyes settle at half-mast in his pleasure. He is so happy to be home, close to this man who completes his entire life. Years, now, they have shared this, years of love and closeness, arguments and compromises. Years, and still this peace comes over Will when Hannibal is near. “Beautiful boy.”

Hannibal hums and shakes his head a little, dusky rose spreading beneath his eyes. “Hardly either right now,” he teases. “An exhausted man. Nearing thirty-two, for that matter.”

“And?”

There’s something in the curl of Will’s voice, the little snap of it like the elastic waistband of briefs or the test of leather against skin. Hannibal presses his tongue against a sharp incisor. His eyes crinkle in their corners.

“Still yours,” he says. “Your beautiful boy, always.”

He shifts back to his knees and curls his toes against the floor, pushing himself to stand with hands against the couch. Will squints against the light and rests his arm across his eyes, taking in the tall figure before him, cast in shadow from the sun behind.

“My last appointment is at five,” Hannibal tells him, straightening his shirt and folding down his sleeves. “I ensured it would be so, in order that I might have dinner ready when you returned tonight.”

“Okay,” Will murmurs, smiling a little more, making the effort, despite the stabbing pain in his head, to look at Hannibal while he is here to look at. It will take him an hour to get to Baltimore, and there has never been a day that Hannibal has not been early. “Thank you.”

As Hannibal moves to the kitchen again, drawing a hand through Will’s messy hair, Buster flops from the couch to follow him with a groan. An old man, now, one of the few of Will’s original pack still around with them. Will sighs. He is exhausted to every molecule of his being, he wants nothing more than to pull Hannibal close and breathe him in, have his talented hands remind him that he is real, that he is here, and that Will is home.

And he will, when Hannibal gets home this evening to make them dinner.

Lord, Will has missed him.

Will pushes himself up and goes to the bathroom to relieve himself and brush his teeth. When he returns to the main room, a steaming mug of coffee waits for him and all the dogs are fed, exploring the garden in the morning sun. He moves up behind Hannibal and wraps his arms around a slim waist, resting his chin against Hannibal’s shoulder.

“Dear Will, you will be the bane of my patients,” Hannibal tells him, looking up from the eggs carefully turned, their yolks still tender. Will makes a curious sound, and Hannibal nuzzles against his cheek. “Or would be, had I not the willpower to resist you for one more day rather than cancel all their appointments.”

“They need you,” Will says, mouth against Hannibal’s throat as he continues cooking, an apron over his clothes. He palms beneath it and between the buttons of Hannibal’s shirt, seeking softly furred stomach and earning a ticklish tense for his trouble.

“As do you, but one must make do at times. As you must with breakfast, I’m afraid I am unprepared to spoil you thoroughly until I’ve had time to go to the store. Better you are home early, though,” he adds, slipping eggs carefully atop thick slices of bread. “Sourdough from our own starter, pesto from the surplus of basil in the garden, eggs atop and on that -”

“Hannibal, you really shouldn’t.”

“- prosciutto,” he says, turning in Will’s arms to face him. The muscles lift beneath his eyes. “Green eggs and ham.”

Will kisses him, lingering and gentle, and carefully sets the plate aside to wrap his arms around Hannibal’s shoulders and stretch to kiss him deeper. Hannibal has grown taller than Will, enough that Will has to be on his toes to stand directly face to face. But he hardly cares, not when this remarkable man nuzzles against him like a kitten when they watch films together on the couch, not when he kneels so beautifully when they play.

“You are a delight,” Will informs him, kissing the tip of Hannibal’s nose before settling to his heels again and taking a step back to allow Hannibal to move past and get ready. “Thank you.”

“You will eat it,” Hannibal says as he removes his apron, turning to watch Will as graceful steps carry him backward. Will draws a breath but holds it as Hannibal’s brow lifts, and he hangs his apron. “That was not a question.”

“I will,” Will tells him. His attention holds on the empty sink, no longer home to the whiskey bottle freshly opened and quickly drained. Arms folded, he follows after Hannibal to watch him choose a tie from among the many. Bright goldenrod, overlaid with mauve flowers.

“And you’ll shower, and then you’ll rest,” Hannibal tells him, pursing his lips as he knots the tie, and taking up the matching mustard check coat that matches his garish trousers. He steps close to Will, stroking slow along tightly folded arms, and he lifts a hand to Will’s chin to raise his eyes. “And when I am home, you will be waiting, and I will bare myself for you and go to my knees and show you how devoutly I have missed you.”

Will shivers, lets his eyes close and his chin be lifted, parting his lips for Hannibal to kiss him again, unfolding his hands to set them softly to Hannibal’s cheeks.

“Go,” he tells him, smiling wide when he pulls away. “Before the selfish monster awakens in me and makes you stay home.” Hannibal hums and Will laughs, kissing him again and gently turning his face away to kiss his jaw. “Go,” he repeats. “Tend to your patients, be safe on the road. Come home to me.”

“Always,” Hannibal promises, gently squeezing Will’s chin to pull him into a deeper kiss, long and lingering and full of heat. Only reluctantly does he part it, and with a soft nuzzle against the side of Will’s nose, he turns to go.

The dogs accompany him, barking and bounding alongside as he walks to his car, a Challenger in matte black, his first purchase with which to spoil himself and one that Will had to encourage him to pursue at every step. It had been the beginning of Hannibal’s rapid material scaling, followed by sleek tailored suits and finery in the kitchen. An office larger than Will’s house.

He is spoiled, Will knows, but now as much by his own work as the comparatively meager money that Will brings home. In truth, watching him flourish into tasteful splendor has been as much a pleasure as every other way in which he’s been able to watch Hannibal grow from a ragged, bruised boy into a man who commands respect.

Always prideful.

Always lovely.

And for Will, always willing to yield.

He lifts a hand as Hannibal’s car rumbles to life, waving him off in a cloud of dust. The dogs return to the house, one by one by one, and Will greets them all in turn. His breakfast sits untouched upon the table, his clothes the same old flannel and threadbare khakis he wore home the night before. It is quiet.

His throat clicks when he swallows.

Some days he feels like this isn’t his life. He doesn’t belong here, among the shiny chrome in the kitchen and expensive first editions in the living room, between the sheets with an impossibly high thread count. Some days he wonders how he got so lucky, with Hannibal as his partner, the love of his life, for so many years. Other days he is terrified that he will wake up in some trashed hovel and realize that is his life instead.

Will laments drinking all the whiskey.

They don’t keep alcohol in the house anymore. Will’s choice not to tempt fate, and on days like these he wishes he hadn’t imposed the rule.

He goes to take up his breakfast instead, drawing out one of the bar stools with his foot to sink into as he pulls the mug of coffee over as well.

Will hardly remembers drinking the whiskey, other than the way it immolated his throat and thoughts in turn. He doesn’t remember the drive back to Wolf Trap. He only in snippets of images that twist like smoke remembers the days before. Exposed bone glinting bright in the sun. Viscera piled into a pyramid of livid violet and scarlet blackening with rot. Eyes, wide and glassy and flat, watching him all in a row, the color of amber.

The same color as Hannibal’s eyes.

Will forces himself to swallow down the carefully constructed breakfast, and he barely tastes it.

They managed to find where the girls were dismembered, a charnel house in what was once a nice old cabin. He’d hung them from the rafters in the basement to drain them dry, but butchered them in the kitchen. Whoever it was abandoned the place when his work was complete, his strange idolatry of limbs and organs and watching eyes in severed heads, but the search and sampling of the property would take a while.

They sent Will home.

Jack said he’d call him when they were done.

Will has almost finished his breakfast when it threatens to come up again. He makes it to the bathroom in time and presses his forehead to the cool bowl, eyes closed and lips parted, body shaking from adrenaline and exhaustion, images slipping behind his eyes like a grotesque flipbook.

He finds that the only thing he feels, once he is steady enough to reach up to flush the toilet, push himself up over the sink, is guilt. Guilt at regurgitating food that Hannibal had spent time making, for him, not for himself. He feels guilty, as he brushes his teeth again, for being a burden, every time he returns from a case.

He’s better than that.

Hannibal deserves better than that.

In the kitchen he finds the cooking sherry, sweet and expensive, and, feeling preemptive shame, takes it to bed to drink.

\---

By the time Hannibal gets home, Will is awake, feeling a little more stable, and in the process of changing the record on the player. The dogs lounge in bed, Winston cozy in his dog bed by the fire, grey around his muzzle and ears. He lifts both and beats his tail against the pillow to greet Hannibal.

“I,” Will declares, “have missed you.”

Hannibal’s smile spreads readily at the words, at the sight of Will, whole and home and happy. He carries a few overladen bags of groceries only so far as the kitchen table and by the time he’s continued past to Will, his jacket’s unbuttoned and halfway off his shoulders. Without hesitation, he drapes himself heavy against the man he loves, shivering beneath Will’s hands on his back, spreading his lips. Will takes a step back and Hannibal leans in nearer, tossing his jacket to the chair.

Will smells clean, like shower soap and laundry detergent, and Hannibal presses his palms against the freshly washed flannel of Will’s shirt.

“All day,” Hannibal whispers against Will’s mouth, touching a kiss between every word. “Every hour, I have thought of you. Only you.”

He lifts his hands but not to Will’s buttons. He works loose his own tie instead, bares his chest in a swift flurry of fingers. Tugged from his trousers, he tosses it carelessly aside, and only scarcely notices when one of the puppies comes to lay on it. In inches Hannibal bares himself, breathless, kissing worship against Will’s throat.

“You’re feeling better,” he whispers. He hopes.

“Yes,” Will breathes, watching him, this striking, proud man baring himself before Will entirely, eyes wide and smile bright before he sinks to his knees before him, leaning to press his forehead to Will’s stomach. Will just strokes his hair, cards his fingers through the smooth strands. He draws his hands down Hannibal's back then back up again, feeling him shiver.

“Lord, I have missed you,” he breathes, stepping back just enough to sink to his knees as well, slipping his fingers through the warm, thick hair of Hannibal’s chest, leaning in to kiss against his neck, timing tickling licks to the warm jazz playing behind them. “What shall we do?” he asks.

Hannibal lifts his eyes, honey-dark, and Will sees them dull, unmoving. A blink and the light has returned to them before long lashes fall against Hannibal’s cheeks and he leans in to kiss the corner of Will’s mouth.

“Anything you wish,” Hannibal whispers, not as a dodge but as allowance. “I have ached for you, in every way. Shall I tell you?”

Will breathes against his shoulder, rubbing his rough-stubbled cheek against smooth skin and firm muscle. “Yes,” he breathes, “yes.”

“I have longed to feel your hands against me,” Hannibal says, easing Will’s trembling breath with a hand in his hair. The other seeks Will’s wrist and pushes his hand harder to the thick thatch of hair on his chest. “Here, stroking. Here,” he says, guiding Will’s hand lower, against filling cock pressed stiff within his trousers, “bringing me over. Against my ass, leaving marks. Within it, stretching me to breaking. I crave the lash. Your tongue. Your cock. The way you whisper praise against my back as you lay heavy atop me. Please -”

“Greedy boy,” Will whispers. “Charming thing.” He wants nothing more than to do everything, to exhaust himself and Hannibal to the point of collapse. But he will be patient, he will wait, he will make Hannibal wait. He squeezes gently around Hannibal’s cock and starts to stroke, keeping his eyes on Hannibal’s, watching them hood but not close.

"I want to take my time," Will tells him. "To taste every inch of you again, after almost a week without. I want to show you how much I missed you. How much I missed this." He turns his hand to work the belt loose and the buttons undone on Hannibal’s pants, drawing the side of his finger against his straining cock. "This." His free hand seeks through the hair on Hannibal’s chest, lightly tugging and thumbing against a nipple until Hannibal makes a little sound of pleasure. "This." Will lets go of Hannibal long enough to sharply slap his thigh, smiling when Hannibal shivers.

"I'm going to take you slowly," Will promises, leaning close enough for their lips to brush. He returns Hannibal's smile before kissing him, chaste and gentle. "Bend you over, sink to my knees..." Will bites his lip and kisses Hannibal again, stroking his hair from his face.

“We should move to the bed,” Hannibal whispers, between their ensnaring kisses.

“No.”

A laugh bubbles up from Hannibal as he frames Will’s face with his hands and shivers when a bruise is sucked against his throat. “Allow me to begin dinner, at least -”

“No.”

It’s as satisfying as the snap of a spanking, delicious as the crack of the cane. Hannibal makes a noise far too youthful in his pleasure to be from a thirty-something man to his fifty-something partner, but he squirms like he’s a teenager, resistant only to feel Will snare an arm tight around the waist. Dark eyes blink wide and Hannibal’s body coils, hips rising in little thrusts, as Will’s other hand traces down the center of his torso.

Sweat trickles sticking to thick hair and fingertips. Each scrape of nails tugs Hannibal’s stomach tighter, rippling and easing beneath Will’s touch. Shadows darken his hand and for a moment, the sweat shines scarlet-black. Will’s breath hitches.

"I missed you," Hannibal whispers, stroking against Will just the same, not asking permission to undress him - he will be told when he can - but relishing the sensation of being bare against Will who is not. Against him, Will shivers at the words, flexes his fingers against Hannibal’s skin, and softly, gently, Will kisses his jaw.

"On your back," he sighs, smiling when Hannibal unfurls gracefully for him, moving from his knees, letting his legs stretch out before him. He rests against his arms, then his elbows, then finally flat against the heavy shag rug, arching his hips in question, smiling wide when Will takes the invitation to slide both pants and underwear from him.

Before him, lies a body unmarred and unharmed, no blood, no skin and fat peeled back to reveal heavy, slippery organs. He is whole. He is here. And so is Will.

With a groan of relief and desire both, Will bends in worship to the man before him. Lips against the warm hair on his chest, prematurely greying and all the more beautiful for it, against his stomach, down, down...

"Draw your knees up," Will whispers. "Spread your legs."

Hannibal presses his heels to the olive green carpet beneath, hipbones stretching sharp beneath his skin. He spreads his thighs with his hands set against them, knees nearly touching the floor. Will watches Hannibal’s gaze go a little distant, lips parted in needy silence, as if half-asleep. If he cannot ease his own mind, he can ease Hannibal’s with the instruction and firm hand on which he’s come to rely.

Hannibal needs this, after a week alone tending to the house and their dogs, his patients and his work.

Will needs this just as much.

“Lift,” says Will, and Hannibal raises his ass from the floor, cock brushing Will’s belly. He presents himself and holds, even when Will’s spit slick fingers press against his opening and inside him, and a gasp shakes the younger man.

“Hard,” Hannibal begs, his words rumbled low. “Please.”

Will hums, watching Hannibal tremble as he holds himself up this way, stomach clenched, thighs taut, hands curling against his own legs. Will leans in, ignoring Hannibal’s cock that twitches hopeful against his cheek, and kisses his hipbone instead. It is permission enough to ease him down should he wish, but Will knows that Hannibal will hold, just like this, until Will makes him move.

Stubborn, lovely thing.

It is such an easy routine for them, now, the dynamic of a dominant and submissive. Both are content to take the roles and see the other bloom accepting their own. With a quiet laugh, Will spreads his fingers a little wider, moves his lips down to the curve of Hannibal’s thigh, lower still to where his thigh joins his ass, and he presses a kiss just where his fingers penetrate him.

“I will,” he promises, voice rougher, lower. “But at a time of my choosing. When I have you shaking and begging and filthy for me.” Will’s fingers slip free and his tongue takes their place before Hannibal can even draw a breath for protest.

Hannibal pushes higher, voice raising in turn. His hands shake against his legs with each swipe of hot tongue against his hole. The penetration is slick, persistent, spreading wide the quivering muscle that tightens around Will’s tongue. He has not told Hannibal not to touch himself - he never does - but he knows that Hannibal will resist until his cock hurts from waiting. Hannibal has always inflicted greater restraint on himself than Will does, savoring the resilience of his own willpower and how sweet it feels when it shatters. He revels in the plea, attunes his entire body to the moment of awaited permission, to serve in the best manner he can imagine.

An overachiever, in every way.

Will curls his lips and sucks, noisy, against wrinkled scarlet skin. Hannibal’s entire body shakes from it, his voice pitched high and helpless, caught adrift on each gasping breath. He digs his nails into his thighs even as his cock spills clear dollops down his belly, darkening the curls of hair on his stomach.

Will savors this, the little tremors, the sounds, the taste of him. Slowly, he sets his hands beneath Hannibal’s ass to hold him and hums praise when Hannibal allows himself to be held. Thumbs gently spread him wider, long licks of his tongue before quick laps to pull laughter and pleas from the man beneath him.

He is beautiful. He is entirely beautiful.

Will spans a hand around the curve of Hannibal’s ass, over soft skin made sensitive and flushed already. He follows the long muscles of his thigh, firming beneath his fingers, and when Hannibal lifts his foot from the ground, Will holds him beneath his knee. Hannibal is nearly upside down, bridged so high that only his remaining foot and shoulders touch the ground, his body laid bare in all its strength and submission to the only man to whom he has ever yielded himself in his entirety.

He grabs him by the other knee, grinning against damp skin, his lips and chin smeared with spit, and bends Hannibal higher still. Laughing, purring, Hannibal sets his heels to Will’s shoulders and Will wraps his arms around Hannibal’s stomach before bowing his head once more to worship in loud licks and soft suckles. Hannibal’s cock hangs heavy, dripping down to his neck where his head rests against the floor, hands splayed beside him on the carpet and clenching in little rhythmic movements. Like a cat kneading, Will imagines, drawing a deep breath to bury his tongue once more.

Will chokes. A glistening line from the tip of Hannibal’s cock leaves a line of scarlet in its wake, down along his belly, over twitching muscle, along his breastbone. Crimson pools in the hollow of Hannibal’s throat as he moans and to either side of the thin red line white tissue reveals itself unfurling wide.

“No,” Will whispers, tightening his arms around Hannibal to hold him together.

“I won’t touch,” Hannibal grins, sleepy in his pleasure from beneath.

Will closes his eyes before fat, slick organs spill from Hannibal’s body and splatter against the floor, before blood can flood from him and drain into the floorboards, before he is left field dressed and ready for the sacrifice, Will closes his eyes and he gasps.

He gasps again.

He can’t breathe.

Hannibal unhooks his feet from Will’s shoulders and rolls down to his back. Sitting up quickly, he grasps Will against him before Will can fall back to the ground, away, away, far away from the sight of his lover disemboweled. His viscera would drag behind him in the movement, Will knows. It would attach still at throat and pelvis, he knows, too. 

He wishes he didn’t know.

He wishes he could forget.

“Rest,” Hannibal whispers, the only voice that can break through the hissing dissonance of his thoughts. “Rest.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You deserve better than me,” Will whispers._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

There is a bottle of whiskey left open on the counter, and the remaining half of a sandwich beside it when Hannibal gets home. 

Will is not there.

His truck is gone, and the dogs are inside. Gone for groceries, perhaps, or to run an errand, or to clear his head. Hannibal regards the bottle for a long time before carefully closing it and setting it under the sink, where Will used to keep the alcohol. He clears away the uneaten food, and starts on dinner.

Will is not home by the time it’s finished, and a message from Hannibal - rephrased and rewritten a dozen times over - receives only the reply _on my way_.

So Hannibal waits.

He wakes to nuzzling behind his ear and the smell of sandalwood hovering over the unmistakable tang of whiskey. Hannibal hums, and warm arms encircle him, and both fall asleep in silence.

The following day is much the same. It begins with warmth, soft kisses and a concern that Hannibal tries to bury beneath providing, instead. Food and coffee, a lingering embrace. He asks Will his plans and is told there are none. He asks if Will would like to accompany him to Baltimore, and Will laughs it off by saying he’d rather not spend all day in a waiting room.

Hannibal only smiles, and tells him _as you wish_.

He cancels his last two appointments of the day, returning with freshly-baked treats for the dogs and a selection of pastries to an empty house and a bottle of rye that’s more full than it was the day before. Will’s fishing equipment stands dusty in the corner. His car is gone.

Hannibal cancels the next day’s appointments with disingenuous apologies.

He wakes to the sound of Will being violently sick in the bathroom. He’s shaking, he’s pale and he reeks of old drink and new dust, and Hannibal sits him in the shower before turning on the water to wash him clean. Will doesn’t speak, he barely moves, eyes shifting beneath closed lids before he forces them open and watches Hannibal meticulously clean him.

“I tried to get home earlier,” Will admits. “I kept seeing you on the road, hunched over and in pain, so I would pull over, just to see, just to make sure, and it wasn’t you, it was never you and the relief, the relief, Hannibal -”

“Will.” Hannibal draws a hand through Will’s hair to soothe him. “I need you to listen to me.”

“Always,” Will swallows, but he shakes his head.

“You may be experiencing a break. The last case -”

“You deserve better than me,” Will whispers.

The words are a crueler blow than any Will has ever laid against his body. Those harsh truths and sharp reprimands are always for Hannibal’s benefit - to make him see when he is blind and to bend when he is stubborn. For a moment Hannibal says nothing, hands moving of their own accord to sponge sick and whiskey from Will’s skin.

“You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I take your keys for the time being,” Hannibal tells him. “It is unsafe enough to drive these roads late at night, deer being the foolish creatures that they are, and it is infinitely more dangerous under duress and drink. I will redirect my patients to alternative services for the time being and make myself available to you.”

“No,” Will swallows, parts his lips again. A laugh escapes him but it is hardly a happy sound. “No, I’m not going to derail your hard work and much loved career because I’m on a fucking bender, Hannibal. I’ll be fine.”

“You are not, in fact, fine,” Hannibal tells him, a smile softening already gentle words. He sets a hand to Will’s hair and grasps his curls to wring them dry. “Nor am I derailed. Allow me.”

“This is what I mean.”

Hannibal’s jaw works, a short breath escaping as he lets his hand slide to Will’s back and stands to seek a towel. “You need rest, and you need time.”

“So you’re giving me yours. All of it.”

“Yes.”

“When you should be living your life, seeing patients, becoming better, Hannibal -”

“Will,” he interjects, tone clipped. His knuckles are whitened by the force with which he holds the towel, each word a lash that splits his skin, each word a bruise. It is as if all at once the thick skin he earned beneath Will’s guidance has peeled away, leaving raw, twitching nerves exposed. He feels young again. Too young.

Unworthy.

And so he says nothing more, turning to offer Will a hand and the towel both.

Will takes them, both, moving slowly and carefully while his head spins and his stomach tries to adjust to the imagined motion. He dries himself, runs the towel through his hair and hangs it up again, watching Hannibal by the sink, washing his hands - practiced and efficient, as one would in a hospital - before flicking drops from his fingers and turning off the tap.

“Please,” Will sighs, bringing a hand up to press to his forehead as though it would help at all in staving off a headache. “No more than a day. A day we can take together, to sleep and rest and -” He bites his lip. “I want you near,” he admits softly. “I want you close, always. You calm me, you complete me and hold me entirely. But I cannot - I cannot be the reason you stress, the reason you do not go to work. It is a battle I’m fighting and I will fight it.”

Hannibal clears his throat, not for meaning but for sensation, to feel his voice within. It is there, still, he has not relinquished it, but neither does he strain its tenuous presence, speaking only softly.

“It seems a close fight,” Hannibal says, setting his hands to Will’s cheeks, smoothing one back through his hair. “And so far it has not shown a clear victory.”

“I’ve done this before,” Will reminds him, and Hannibal nods, genuine acknowledgment of this.

“Few wars are won single-handedly, however, when their resources are depleted,” Hannibal says. “It is through strength in allies that victory is assured. Do you trust me, Will?”

Will laughs again, another dire sound, but turns his face into Hannibal’s palm, seeking the familiar softness there, the warmth, the reassurance and strength. He is so strong, he has always been so strong.

Without a word he nods, just once, and licks his lips parted to kiss against Hannibal’s wrist.

“With my life.”

Hannibal tilts his head to the same angle at which Will holds his. He presses his palm more firmly, support and contact both, and strokes Will’s cheek with his thumb.

“Then trust that perhaps, in times like this, I can see things that may be obscured to you,” he says. “Just as you so often see in me what I cannot.”

A smile is offered but hardly returned, and Hannibal does not fault Will for the lack of effort. It is exhausting, he knows all too well, to see shadows move in strange ways and to feel pursued by formless and fearful things. It is tiring to fight. It is a marathon of the mind, run through quicksand.

He offers Will his hand again, and when it is taken, Hannibal leads him to bed.

Closeness is something both of them have always relished, something they had spent years exclusively enjoying. Hannibal - younger, then - curled up against Will’s chest just to sleep on him as the older man worked, just touches, kisses, hands through warm settled hair. Nothing demanded, nothing expected, but the closeness always enjoyed.

Will allows himself to be folded into Hannibal’s arms, now, shifting back against them so they spoon with no space between them at all - Will nude, Hannibal in his sleep pants. Will sets a hand against Hannibal’s where it rests over his middle and strokes his thumb over his knuckles.

“It usually doesn’t stick like this.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes it’s like trudging through a swamp,” Will sighs. “Endless, and I know if I stop, I’ll sink, but if I keep going…”

“You’ll find solid ground,” Hannibal says, his breath softly stirring the small soft hairs drying at the back of Will’s neck. “You will be exhausted, worn through. Your body will ache and your mind will be a hum but you will find it. Rest. Regain yourself and your strength.”

“You shouldn’t have to be the one to comfort me,” murmurs Will, pushing back against Hannibal as if they could lay any closer. Hannibal accepts the movement and in response tightens his arm around Will a little more.

“When have you ever made me do anything?” he asks, a smile in his words, in the deepening wrinkles around his eyes. “All that I do is a choice, and this no different from making dinner or bending across the desk for you. You have survived this trudge before. You will again.”

Will sighs, turning his head into the pillow, his body into the one behind him. “Perhaps, but will we?” he murmurs.

There is a worry, always a worry, that something he does will unsettle Hannibal enough to leave. Years, now, of coming home broken and not himself, years of Hannibal stroking his hair and climbing into his lap and calming him down. Years of this closeness, this bond, that some days Will finds himself panicking, wondering if he did not break this boy beyond repair when he met him at seventeen, if this is not the most frightening Stockholm Syndrome.

What if.

It plagues him. It pulls bile up his throat again and he shivers.

“I love you,” he sighs. “I love you. I’ll make it better. It’s my job to make it better.”

“I love you,” whispers Hannibal in return, eyes open in the dark. He is keeping watch, he knows, an old habit unfortunately learned, but it eases his own mind from the dire declarations spoken by the man he loves. His heart settles. “The time together will be good for us. We both push ourselves harder than we need. Were we to lean on the other instead, our strain would be halved.”

Will makes only a small sound, and Hannibal hushes him, dotting his shoulder with kisses. He spreads his fingers against Will’s stomach and when Will presses his hand atop, their fingers lace and squeeze.

He keeps to himself the consideration that Will’s years in this particular service have become too great. They celebrated his fiftieth birthday a year ago. Hannibal cannot imagine the horrors that have taken refuge in the dark corners of Will’s mind after spending over half his life pursuing them. It does not become easier with age, the mind becomes ever so less resilient, and these episodes - though still rare - have become more frequent than they were a decade before.

A conversation for another night.

“Tomorrow morning you will wake to find the bed barren,” Hannibal murmurs. “You will be displeased, and I too for not being swift enough in parting the sea of dogs to return to you with coffee and crepes. You’ll make sounds about how I ought not have done so, how I should rest too, and I will, as ever, ignore them.” Will snorts, and Hannibal grins a little. “You will forget them entirely when I feed you from my fingers, and I will forget all else in the world but how much I love you when you kiss the powdered sugar from my lips and suck the blackberry jam from my fingers.”

Will sighs again, contented to be wrapped in these words as he is in Hannibal’s arms, as he will, tomorrow morning, be wrapped in the warm smell of cooking and dark bitter coffee. It is no longer the unattainable fantasy Will had once told himself this most likely was. They are together, they are warm and safe and once in awhile darkness creeps in and is quickly dissipated.

They will get through this.

They always have.

Will just has to make sure they never have to again.

He brings Hannibal’s hand to his lips to kiss, nuzzling his knuckles, unfurling long elegant fingers to kiss their tips. He takes his time worshiping the man he adores, atoning for his cruel words and hard shell. He takes his time until Hannibal mumbles against him to sleep, until he kisses hot behind Will’s ear and Will grins.

“I will tell you off in the morning,” Will warns him, and Hannibal hums that he knows.

“I’ll ignore that too,” murmurs Hannibal, allowing his eyes to close only then. “And tell you only that I want what’s best for you, as I fill you with sweet breakfast foods and kiss their taste from you.”

“It will make a mess in bed.”

“Powdered sugar everywhere. Terrible.”

“It will stick to your skin.”

“Will it?”

“When I pin you down in it, yes.”

Hannibal draws a deep breath through his nose, releasing it when he shivers, pleased with the promise. “A bath may be in order then, for both of us, and then a little more sleep to recover from such an adventuresome morning as that.”

“Good,” Will replies, finally feeling his muscles relax, his body grow heavy. This is home. This is comfort and joy and love, this is what love is. He is lucky to have it. He would not want it with anyone else. “‘Til the morning, then.”

Will wakes to an empty bed, to the dogs barking outside in the early morning sun, and to the smell of breakfast being made in the kitchen. He smiles, entirely content, entirely warm, curling up in bed before stretching, groaning in pleasure at the pull of muscles.

Beyond a headache, there is little to haunt him from the night before, and Will sighs a breath of relief, eyes to the ceiling, as he waits. A moment, another, and he bites his lip to hide his grin.

“Hannibal,” he calls. “Come back to bed, you awful man.”

A hum of disapproval resonates from within the kitchen, among the tap of kitchenware and the hiss of food. It is only a few minutes later that Hannibal emerges, in little more than his sleep pants and his apron - and it is his, embroidered with his initials in the bottom corner. In one hand, two mugs of coffee. In the other, a plate of crepes, powdered and leaking sweet jam from within.

“Has so much changed overnight?” Hannibal asks. “That I am an awful man, now, rather than a spoiled boy? I seem to have grown in both age and reprehensibility.”

Will snorts, grinning wide, and presses a hand over his eyes as Hannibal approaches.

“Terrible boy,” he amends. “Bare yourself and get in my bed.”

Hannibal raises a brow and his chin both, playfully prim. He sets the mugs on the nightstand and the plate beside, and reaches behind himself to unlace the apron and lift it from around his neck. Will’s eyes follow the landscape of his body, ridges of bone and planes of muscle, a forest of hair that thins and thickens again just where Hannibal begins to slip lower his sleep pants.

“Entirely?” he asks, pausing.

“Hannibal.”

A shiver draws him taller and Hannibal inclines his head, gracious in accepting the sweet scolding. Thumbs in his waistband, he lets his pants slip to his feet and steps free, one knee to the bed, the other, hands before him. Slinking closer on all fours, he waits, lips parted and brows raised in expectation.

Will just watches him, his own smile crooked and eyes hooded as he waits for Hannibal to crawl closer. When he’s near enough, Will sits up, reaching for him, and pulls him close to kiss. Smiles are trapped between them, eyes closed in comfortable sleepy pleasure, and Will pulls back just enough to nuzzle his nose against Hannibal’s, sighing contented.

“You promised to feed me breakfast?” he reminds Hannibal, to a warm hum he gets in answer. “I want you in my lap,” Will tells him, “close, legs around me and back straight. You have beautiful posture.”

Hannibal frames Will’s face in his hands and kisses him softly again, in gratitude, in relief.

“Yes, Will,” he whispers, smile widening as he leans back and Will adjusts to lean against the headboard. Hannibal takes up the plate first - a daring maneuver - but balances it with seemingly effortless grace as he slides to straddle Will’s lap. Folding his legs around him, he hooks his heels together and straightens his spine, his smile small and pleased and young as he finds his position.

“Many years of bending prostrate across your table,” Hannibal says, “and many years of service as both writing desk and footrest. One develops strong abdominal muscles.” He forks loose a sliver of messy crepe and gathers it in his fingers, holding the plate between them as he lifts it to Will’s lips in offering.

Will takes it with a smile, relishing as much the taste and texture of a perfectly cooked breakfast as the softness of Hannibal’s fingers beneath that. He sucks them clean, gently nips the tip of one and releases Hannibal’s hand once more.

“I would prefer to share breakfast,” Will says, “but if you have already eaten, I’ll excuse it.”

A raised eyebrow, a deliberately slow slice of the fork against the soft crepe and Hannibal sets the next piece into his own mouth, eyes wrinkling in pleasure as Will bites his lip and watches him.

“How did you sleep?” Will asks finally, once Hannibal has swallowed his mouthful, parting his lips for his own, next. He gently sets a hand to the base of Hannibal’s spine, ostensibly to remind Hannibal to sit straight, but in truth just to watch him arch a little more. Will knows how long Hannibal can hold the position, he has made him do it before, relishing in Hannibal losing himself to bliss, eyes glazed and lips parted, being nothing more than _useful_.

“More easily once you did,” Hannibal tells him. “I was awake a little longer still, accompanied by the cadence of your snoring. I was concerned you may be sick again, had you not rid your stomach of its contents entirely.” He thumbs away a dusting of sugar from Will’s bottom lip and brings it between his own to taste. “You were not, and so I rested.”

Will’s hands press a little firmer and Hannibal pulls his shoulders wide, chin raising. He does not have to think of the movement, familiar intimately with the workings of his body and how to adjust the pulleys of his musculature just so. He feeds himself another portion, from the fork, but gives Will his share with his fingers again.

“Did you dream, Will?”

“Of you,” Will tells him, and it’s the truth. He takes his time chewing, careful shifts of his jaw, eyes on Hannibal before him, endlessly beautiful, endlessly surprising and strong in everything he does. “Of summer in Florence, do you remember?” Will smiles, Hannibal chews contentedly and raises an eyebrow, silently asking him to go on. “I dreamed of that morning we woke too early, jet-lag still in our blood, and went for a walk. The only place that was open was the little market stall, the first to set up.”

“The one that sold irises.”

“Yes,” Will laughs. “Beautiful white irises.”

“We paid far too much for them,” Hannibal smiles, giving the last bite to Will and allowing his fingers to be sucked clean as he sets the plate aside, and takes up a cup of coffee instead. “We’d not yet converted any currency.”

“He didn’t want to take it, but you convinced him the exchange rate was in his favor,” Will murmurs, eyes bright. “Clever boy.”

“It helps to speak Italian,” Hannibal shrugs. “And to palm him an additional twenty beneath what you had offered.”

“You didn’t.”

“I most certainly did. It was worth it to fill the room with flowers, though it did little to curb our hunger,” he adds, amused.

Will leans in to kiss him, careful to keep the mug stable between them both so Hannibal doesn’t burn his skin. He slips his fingers alongside Hannibal’s to take it from him, to set it to the bedside table again. Will sets both hands to Hannibal’s face, down to his shoulders to ease him from the beautiful posture he’s held. Kissing lower, to Hannibal’s jaw, to his neck, to his clavicle, little licks and sucks, Will nudges to have Hannibal lay back as Will crawls over him, pressing his weight to the younger man.

“Hardly ever does,” he sighs, grinning as Hannibal smiles at him, brings his own hands to tug Will’s hair, run fingertips down his spine.

“I want you,” Will tells him. “Every way I can get you before we have to have the dogs back in and you obsessively claim you have to do the dishes.”

“I am affronted.”

“Are you?”

“Scandalized.”

“By?”

“You,” Hannibal grins, drawing his knees up Will’s hips, against his ribs, heels tucked beneath his backside. “Without my good influence on the state of our sink, we’d be using paper plates and styrofoam cups.”

“Prideful boy,” sighs Will, turning Hannibal’s head aside with a kiss against his ear. He holds Hannibal’s lobe between his teeth, suckling enough to shiver him. “I would be lost without you.”

The words ring a deeper note than dishes, and Hannibal wraps his arms beneath Will’s own, grasping his shoulders. He turns their mouths together and savors warm bread and summer berries, sugar and a sweetness far beyond any food. It is the years of memories between them, and years more ahead. It is every intuitive look or action between them in the transparent spaces where no needs need be spoken because they are already known.

But sometimes, often, it’s a pleasure to speak them anyway.

“Please, Will,” Hannibal begs, breath hot against Will’s shoulder. “I’ve missed you so.”

Will draws up one knee, lets the other leg lie flat, and presses heavier into Hannibal. He has missed him. He loves him. Nothing will ever change that for them. Carefully, Will seeks down to spread Hannibal for him, gentle presses of fingers against warm smooth skin until he lays as Will wants him.

“Lube?”

Hannibal shakes his head, eyes hooded and lips curved into a smile. Will sighs against his lips before he kisses them, bringing his hand further between Hannibal’s legs to tease against his hole, stroking it, gently pressing his thumb in, just enough to feel. Firm pressure and intoxicating heat, rhythmic pulse that spreads through quivering muscle as Hannibal arches with a breathy little moan. Will tilts their noses together to turn Hannibal’s head back down again and taste his voice, twisting higher as he turns his thumb and patiently, gently stretches Hannibal open.

“I touched myself while you were away,” confesses Hannibal, every subtle wince followed by a ready moan. “With abandon.”

“Tell me how.”

“More than once I turned to my stomach, my cheek against your pillow, breathing in your lingering scent from it, and rubbed myself against the sheets beneath.”

“And?”

“I used my fingers, within, and Will, it was nothing compared to you now,” he murmurs, burying his face against the curve of Will’s neck as Will aligns his cock. The pressure pushes steady but with a long sigh, Hannibal relaxes and yields, his voice cracking as he’s slowly filled. “When I climaxed, I whispered your name, in hopes that you might hear it.”

“Beautiful boy,” Will whispers, gentle as he takes Hannibal this way, a deliberate rocking to give them both a slow build of pleasure. Will touches Hannibal’s face, his neck, kisses against his temple, his cheek…

They make love until the sheets are tangled, until Will is on his back, grinning at Hannibal who rides him so languidly, so beautifully with every roll of his hips. They move until they slip with sweat against each other, breaths panted against damp skin and sticky hair. They move until Will bites his lip and presses his nails against Hannibal’s thighs and comes, hard, inside him, pressing lazy kisses to his throat. They stay tangled after Hannibal comes, both content to doze, grasping for the sheets when they start to cool down. Neither wake until early afternoon, Hannibal getting up with a wince to let the dogs back in, to take the dishes and now-cold coffee to the kitchen to wash and set away, starting the coffee machine again for them both.

And neither think of the horrors Will sees, or the terrors to which Hannibal listens. And neither think of cruel words and crueler actions. Will gets up to help Hannibal with lunch and they both enjoy it on the porch, feet set in the warm dry grass.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Here, he would find the belt released, here he would find the flow of oxygen to his brain enough to have him slip to the floor, have Will catch him and hold him close, murmuring praise and sweet nothings against him, the belt set away. Here, he would feel his entire body, how fast his heart was beating, how sharp his breaths felt, how quickly his blood rushed beneath his skin, right here._
> 
> _Here, he would feel alive._
> 
> _But the belt doesn’t loosen._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Days pass.

A weekend gives Hannibal relief, the days surrounding it free of patients by Hannibal’s own insistence. Will protests, and Hannibal pays it no mind. He has become more confident, with age and with their comfort together, in disobeying now and again.

In truth, Will hardly minds. Not when comfort comes readily in the form of home-cooked meals and jogs together in the woods with the younger dogs. Not when closeness fills the spaces that liquor could not. They join and touch and tease in every way they can imagine, exhausting themselves into tangles of limbs and laughter.

It reminds Will of summer, over a decade before, when Hannibal elected not to take classes for those intermediary months and Will was free from teaching. Better now, though, for the experience age has given them, rounding rough corners and softening hard angles within them both. Better now for knowing, without doubt, what the mischievous narrowing of Hannibal’s eyes means as he strides barefoot across the living room.

Will watches over the rims of his glasses, smile pressed into pursed lips as Hannibal nears him and gracefully sinks to his knees before him.

“Evening.”

“Will.”

Blue eyes watch over the top of his book before Will sets it down and aside, tilting his head as though he doesn’t know what request is coming, as though he doesn’t know what Hannibal wants from him. He uncrosses his legs and sets them wide enough for Hannibal to shuffle forward and rest his chin against one knee.

Will considers him, beautiful and playful, eyes narrowed further and just the tip of his tongue seeking out to lick soft against his plush bottom lip.

“Tell me,” Will allows, curling his fingers and resting his cheek against them.

Hannibal’s smile widens, and with a peculiar shyness, always, in this, he hides it against Will’s leg, turning his head to rub his cheek there. “I think that I could watch you just so for a thousand years, and never tire of it.”

Will is able to demure his smile only by way of years of practice, though it shows in his eyes, drawing up ever so slightly. “Is that what you came to tell me?”

“No,” admits Hannibal. “But it struck me in the moment.”

“An interesting choice of words.”

Hannibal’s grin spreads. “You know, then, what I seek.”

“And I know that you have neither told me, nor asked. You know better, Hannibal.”

“I do,” he murmurs, rubbing his cheek slowly against the soft fabric of Will’s pants. Even still, he hesitates to ask, to make his demands clearly stated, and Will watches Hannibal’s blush vine like early spring primroses beneath his eyes and onto his cheek. “I ache to feel your marks on me.”

“Mm.” Will’s smile quirks a little higher. “It has been a while since I painted stripes across your thighs. I wonder if you still remember to hold still.”

“Yes.” Hannibal’s smile widens, his blush darkens. No matter the time passed between them, here he feels like he is eighteen again, still the little boy Will had spent so long courting, helping, loving. “I remember.”

Will draws his fingers through Hannibal’s hair and slowly curls them, enough that Hannibal’s brows furrow, that his lip twitches in a bare wince as Will tugs a little too hard.

“You always look so beautiful spread for me, trembling, arching your back like a good boy even when you’re sobbing into the sheets. I have missed it.”

Hannibal’s moan snaps sharply in half as he’s brought to his feet when Will stands, hand still fisted in Hannibal’s hair. His cock - already half-stiff just from kneeling at Will’s feet - surges flushed and jerks hard in response to the pain singing heat through his limbs. He allows himself to be moved; he bends himself that Will might more easily do so. And he watches, eyes blown black and wide with adoration, as Will guides him towards the bed.

“Let me show you,” Hannibal manages, voice rough. “Let me show you how good I can be for you.”

Will releases him with a shove and Hannibal catches himself with his hands against the mattress. The dogs have been strategically brought to another room, the front door locked. He looks across his shoulder as he hears a rustle of fabric, and when Will’s fingers pause in unbuttoning, Hannibal returns his gaze to the unmade bed before him.

“What will it be, Hannibal? What do you deserve?”

“The cane,” Hannibal whispers. Will clucks his tongue, and Hannibal holds his bottom lip between his teeth as he spreads his feet wider, cock standing stiff between his legs.

“No.”

Hannibal moans, head bowed between his arms. They are both in good spirits for this, well-rested and sated in every way but this. He stretches to his toes, calves and thighs pulling long, and shifts his weight, beckoning.

“The belt, then,” he whispers. “Please.”

Will just arches his back, drops his head back and looks at the ceiling as his fingers work his belt loose. He doesn’t need to see Hannibal to know he’s shivering, he can hear it. The little tremor in his breath, the hitch, the shuffle of hands against the bed and feet sticking gently to the wooden floor beneath them.

“Why?”

“Because I want it.”

“Undeserved?”

“Undeserved,” Hannibal laughs, and Will hums, taking a step closer, another, and setting one foot gently against Hannibal’s to spread him wider still.

“A punishment that is no longer a punishment.”

“A punishment that never was one.”

Will lets the end of the belt slip to the floor, metal against wood and Hannibal moans from that alone. The buckle clatters softly as Will steps closer and each whisper dragged across the floor spills ripples along Hannibal’s spine like pebbles into a pond. He curves his back and pushes out his hips, legs spread and body presented as Hannibal lowers to his forearms and hangs his head between them.

The rasp of rough-worn leather against his legs tugs his cock tighter, jerking up nearly to his belly. He knows from the length that grazes his skin that Will has it wrapped around his fist, the buckle against his palm. The tongue of leather strokes the back of his balls, up the valley of his ass. The next touch comes as it’s slapped lightly between his legs, contacting his cock.

At this, Hannibal moans, loud. Once, years before, he restrained his voice and kept himself still - an old ability-turned-habit to deny certain undesirable customers the pleasure of his hard-won voice. Through coaxing and tempered punishment, Hannibal learned that he should never do so for Will, that if he wishes to moan he should moan, if he wishes to curse he should curse. And never again has Hannibal shared his voice with another.

“Good boy,” Will breathes. “You’re starved for it, look at you. Ask me.”

“Please.”

“Hannibal.”

“Please, whip me.”

Will moans then, soft, and bends to press a hot kiss against Hannibal’s ass, just one cheek, turning to nuzzle warm stubble against it before he steps back.

“What else?”

Hannibal shivers, clenches his muscles, curls his hands in the sheets.

“What else can I give my awful boy for begging so sweetly for this?” The first lash comes unexpected, sharp against Hannibal’s thigh, and his breath hitches. The heat coils cold in his skin and unravels hot, and Hannibal shifts to his toes again with a moan buried into the mattress.

“Again,” he begs, but no contact comes and Hannibal laughs weakly, trembling in anticipation and fisting the sheets tighter to steady himself. “Bind me with it.”

“No.”

Hannibal’s cock swells, twitching, and drips a bead of precome to the floor beneath him.

“My breath,” he says instead. “Paced as you desire it, stopped and started and -”

A loud snap sings in Hannibal’s ears like thunder before the lightning strike, and another mark is left scarlet across his legs. Just beneath his ass, right where he sits - he will shift and adjust for days after, as much to feel the pain as to avoid it. He lifts a hand from the bed, so warm suddenly that he’s sweating, and holds it hovering.

“May I touch?” Hannibal asks, and he holds his lip between his teeth.

Will steps close enough to bend and press his lips to Hannibal’s shoulder. “Yes, sweet boy, you can touch.”

He waits until Hannibal’s hand is between his legs before he lets the belt unfurl, bends it in half in his hand instead and lifts his arm over his shoulder to let it fall. Moans and bitten back little sounds, Hannibal’s breath already hitching without any help of the belt around his throat. With every strike, Will speaks to him, loving murmured words of how good he is, how hungry Will has been for him, how he has missed seeing him this way.

“I will run my lips over the heat of your skin,” Will promises. tapping the belt against the insides of Hannibal’s thighs until he shifts to present himself better. “Draw shivers from you when I drag them over the red marks that bloom so beautifully on your skin. Will you let me?”

“Yes.”

“Will you beg me?”

“Yes, Will, please -”

A sigh, pulling Will’s entire body taut in his own pleasure, and he steps up against Hannibal, clothed thighs rubbing against sensitive skin. He just watches, the way Hannibal strokes himself, arches, rubs back against Will. Trusting and beautiful and so, so turned on. He knows if he looks into Hannibal’s eyes he will find the look distant, he will find Hannibal no longer here but deep, deep in the subspace he so seeks.

Without a word, Will presses a kiss to Hannibal’s temple and slips the belt around his throat instead.

Hannibal curls his fists tighter against the bed and his own cock, now pulsing in time with the drumbeat inside his head. The leather strap sinks firm against his skin and Hannibal forces his breath to steady. A long exhale, followed by an inhale that only fills his lungs halfway before the belt closes tight around him.

There is silence, sudden and stark. The room itself reverberates with his own heartbeat, held steady as sweat-worn leather reddens twin stripes into his skin. Held steady for moments until the belt tightens, and then it quickens.

Hannibal’s lips part voiceless but for a gasp that creaks free. He pushes himself back against Will’s hips but Will pushes him harder to the bed in response. His free hand spreads before him and he bows, eyes closing as his vision starts to darken around the edges. Skin whispers swiftly against skin as he pulls himself off harder, faster, balls drawing up so tight that his stomach aches from it.

He makes a sound, breathless and weak, and splays his fingers on the bed. It feels good, he is dizzy with it, his entire world is shrinking to nearly nothing at all, and he gasps, futilely and helplessly, and allows himself to come.

Here, he would find the belt released, here he would find the flow of oxygen to his brain enough to have him slip to the floor, have Will catch him and hold him close, murmuring praise and sweet nothings against him, the belt set away. Here, he would feel his entire body, how fast his heart was beating, how sharp his breaths felt, how quickly his blood rushed beneath his skin, right here.

Here, he would feel alive.

But the belt doesn’t loosen.

Hannibal smears shine across the bed as he grasps it with both hands. The cataclysm in his head thunders deafening; he cannot hear if Will speaks to him, he cannot hear the sweet and gentle words that fall against his skin like cooling rain.

_Beautiful boy._

_I’m so proud of you._

_I love you._

Hannibal’s knees jerk from beneath him but the belt cuts deeper when he slides to the ground. He watches his hand lift, he cannot feel it now, but he closes it to a weak fist and it is only a mirror to the cinch around his throat and it does not stop, it does not stop. His hair rips in firefly sparks of pain where the buckle catches against the back of his throat, and he recognizes that the ache in his back is not straining muscle but Will’s knee.

Skin tears beneath his fingers. Through stars bursting bright against the blackening void of vision, Hannibal sees ichor speckle his thighs. He cannot grasp beneath the belt because he did not allow himself room for it.

He didn’t need to, before.

He never did before.

His lungs curl and dry on a single breath past cracking lips, a tumbleweed word across barren wastes:

 _Pomegranate_.

Will hears it; he does not listen. The thing beneath him is but a number, one of many, one of endless. He knows that soon the belt will do its job, he will catch it just before life leaves it and then -

And then.

Organs are always better fresh. Always better to be harvested while these things are alive, where blood can get to them, and oxygen too. Or, enough, at least, to package. To parcel off and away. He doesn’t need much, just kidneys, perhaps, the liver. Not the heart, not of this one. This heart will beat until Will is done with the rest, and then he will leave it, proud and displayed against the bed of purple guts and bile.

Because he is a fan of presentation, he is a fan of still life and this body is an artwork.

This body is his design.

It jerks beneath him and Will hums, curling another loop of leather around his wrist. This isn’t how he prefers to end it, but opportunity must not be disregarded when she presents to him a willing sacrifice. Pills work better. Formaldehyde works better.

But this will do.

He tugs back hard enough to bring it to its back, watching as useless appendages claw fruitless at the brown band around its throat. There’s no salvation for this thing; there’s no righteous God that would hear its haggard gasp. Will breathes a word of thanks instead, his eyes upturned to the heavens.

It’s cut short when a blow lands against his thigh, precariously close to his groin, and he doubles over with a growl. It isn’t speaking, only hissing, and Will bares his teeth and yanks to pull it against the floor, towards the basement where it belongs with the other ones like it. He needs it, and it’s not his damn fault of it doesn’t understand why it was put on this Earth.

“Just a moment more now,” Will breathes. “Then we’ll get you trussed up and dried out and you’ll be right as rain.”

His own voice cracks the silence with a shout as Will’s hand bleeds thick, the belt stripped from it in a savage spasm. Not a death throe, not those final violent earthquake-tremors that always go on too long and go on even when he strangles them with his hands and go on and on until he prays for it to stop. Not that at all.

It bends itself from the floor, pulling loose fabric from atop the mattress and holding a hand against its throat. Will blinks, and its amber eyes are hot with hellfire.

He blinks again, and Hannibal’s tears spill down his cheeks.

And then the sounds rush back, heat and light and energy surging hard enough to snap. He isn’t out at night harvesting - he doesn’t harvest, the thought makes him sick. But the killer does. The killer Will hadn’t caught, that Jack had sent him home over, the killer that -

“Oh God." Will's legs give and he sinks to the ground before Hannibal, eyes wide and just as bright as the man who stares at him as if he’s never seen him before. “Oh my God.”

The mark around Hannibal’s neck is cruel crimson, some skin chafed off and seeping clear fluid spun with red. His cheeks are flushed, and he can’t stop the wet heat slicking his cheeks. He crouches like a creature coiled, possessed by fear and survival, and he watches Will and Will can’t breathe. Will can’t breathe.

“Hannibal,” he whispers, sitting forward on his knees to reach, eyes widening when Hannibal draws away from him. Hannibal clutches his throat, still, as if to tear away the belt now left on the floor. His fingers tremble and he takes deep hitched breaths, coughing.

He could have killed him. Will would have killed him. He almost had, he could feel how close he was, how -

_Pomegranate._

Will barely blinks but the tears fall anyway, heavy and thick and not his at all by right to have. He presses a hand into his hair and sit heavily back against the floor, kicking his feet against it until his back hits a wall and he can press to it.

He didn’t listen. He didn’t listen to the one thing he had always promised Hannibal he would hear.

Hannibal hunches silent but for staggering breaths, one knee upon the bed, a hand beside it. For an agony of minutes his gaze is distant, and Will wonders with sudden and irrational terror if he has killed Hannibal’s spirit in his brutality, and left only his body alive. A click betrays rising sick swallowed back down, a grimace tightening the lines of Hannibal’s features. When Hannibal finally lowers the hand at his throat, Will sees violence laid livid violet against his skin.

Will makes a sound, and it sounds as if it’s from someone else’s body entirely.

There is no echoing sound from Hannibal. Only ragged, wheezing breath as the man, who despite his size and strength, tries to hide the tremors of adrenaline shaking him so hard that he can scarcely stand. A cacophony of barking carries from the spare room upstairs and towards this, Hannibal briefly lifts his eyes as he, shaking, takes up his trousers from the floor. He does not look again to Will.

Will heard. He heard him whisper despite the belt, he saw him motion for release, and in response he doubled down. There are scratch marks on Hannibal’s back from the floor, a bruise centered on his spine where his knee drove in. Broad bands of red across his backside from the lashing. Semen glistening along his thighs.

Even as Hannibal tugs on his trousers and works himself shaking into a shirt, one of Will’s, he does not turn his back towards him.

He does not speak.

And Will just watches, trying to catch his own breath, trying to see Hannibal through the smear of tears that he shouldn’t be shedding.

“I got lost,” he says. “I got lost and I couldn’t find you, and I couldn’t find myself and I -”

It’s useless, pathetic words that mean nothing at all. He can hear the rasp of Hannibal’s breathing, the shifting of skin against fabric as he settles his clothes. Will can’t move. He is paralyzed reliving the horror he had just caused, watching it bloom cruel against Hannibal’s skin. Will can only imagine what Hannibal’s mind is conjuring.

And it is all his fault.

“Hannibal, I am so sorry.”

Fingers at the collar of his shirt, Hannibal makes a soft sound that penetrates the looming silence, with the dogs settled again after the clamor. His hands tremble too much to close it and so he leaves it open. Step by deliberate step, he seeks out shoes, and turns them towards Will as he slides into them.

“Please,” Will begs, though he has no right. “Please, Hannibal -”

What can he ask for? What dare he? Forgiveness is undeserved, kindness just as much. Hannibal’s eyes are wide and not his own, neither drawn up in thought nor narrowed in spite. Will sucks in a breath to ask Hannibal to come back, to here and now, to the home they have shared for years and the trust that now in its destruction chokes the air from their bodies.

“Please say something,” Will asks instead, and this finally pulls Hannibal’s gaze to him. He looks at Will as if seeing him for the first time, the same wariness and caution as when they met so long ago. A blink eases Hannibal’s eyes away again and he turns towards the door, lips parted with no more than wheezing breath between them.

Will watches him, his own breath catching, his own heart stuttering, and he scrambles up to follow. Not to grasp, not to turn or touch or make Hannibal do anything but just to be near, to follow, to do _something_.

“Please,” Will tries again. “Hannibal, anything. Curse me, tell me to go to hell, please, please say something.”

Will swallows when Hannibal stops, lips parted and jaw working gently back and forth before he closes his mouth again, ducks his head, and Will’s breath leaves him. He remembers when Hannibal had written to him, begging him to come, not accepting calls, not accepting anything but seeking comfort. He remembers gentling him, trying to get Hannibal to speak, trying to get him to explain, to ask.

And he couldn’t.

“Please tell me I didn’t bring you there,” Will whispers. “Please tell me I can fix this.”

A step forward brings Hannibal a step back. Eyes raised and head tilted, Hannibal waits for another move, and Will doesn’t dare. His hands curl to fists at his sides, squeeze, and release and he watches Hannibal’s attention track the movement.

“I love you,” Will says, his own voice splintering. “I never wanted to hurt you, Hannibal, let me -”

Hannibal lifts his hands, palms out. To ask for time, to keep distance between them, Will doesn’t know but he shakes his head as Hannibal reaches for the door without turning. The only answer Hannibal gives is the rasp of his breath, like sandpaper in his throat, and only when he’s at the porch steps does he turn his back to Will, as long strides carry him silently to his car.

Will watches him go and he doesn’t follow. He watches Hannibal climb into his car and he doesn’t follow. He hears the motor start up, he watches Hannibal pull away down the drive, he watches until he can’t see anything at all and he doesn’t follow.

He can’t.

Will only realizes he’s made a sound when his lungs burn from how long he holds it. A low, quiet little wail that hurts more than any scream.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _His Will would never do this to him._
> 
> _Hannibal swallows, wincing, and closes his eyes._
> 
> _But he had, hadn’t he?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Hannibal takes the winding 676 at half the speed necessary, and clears the claustrophobic chasm of trees onto the VA-7 with his turn signal on. There is no one, not this late. He is alone.

He turns slowly anyway.

By the time he’s passed the 267 to the I-495, Hannibal’s car snarls against the pavement. He hits the I-95 at a speed high enough that were he to be stopped, a ticket would be unavoidable and substantial.

He doesn’t slow.

Tires shrieking as he takes the turn past Johns Hopkins, stop lights casting scarlet across his skin as he blazes beneath, Hannibal finds himself at his long-neglected apartment in less than an hour.

Fifty-five miles away from Will.

Fifty-five miles too far.

Fifty-five miles too close.

Hannibal shuts off his car and splays his hands against the wheel, pressing a clammy cheek to the expensive leather as he struggles to breathe. His belt is suffocating him, the car itself. He considers burning it, with Will’s old drive-through cup in the holder and traces of their DNA held within the backseat. He considers immolating every memory associated with the thing and himself inside and finally steps from the car with a stagger, seeking out his keys.

He finds Will’s there, too, and pockets them again.

Hannibal does not know the hand that unlocks his apartment, the one that turns on the light. He does not recognize the body beneath him, let alone in this place, kept since he was seventeen and used last perhaps a year before. His frame is too big here, it doesn’t belong. He’s never been big. Hungry and afraid, thin skin and narrow bones, it was so easy for them to set their hands against him, so easy to make him turn to his stomach and hold him against the pillow so he couldn’t shout.

Couldn’t cry.

Couldn’t breathe.

Air stabs into his throat and he leans against the door, fumbling it locked behind him. The ceiling is too low for this to be the orphanage. The room to small to be Wolf Trap. There is only one bed and a couch where there should be a row of cots or mismatched chairs and there is no band of boys here but there is Hannibal in his own reflection in the mirror and there is no Will.

Will.

His Will.

Will who made the nightmares stop.

Will who brought them all back.

His own guilt brings sick into his throat, and he slumps slowly to sit beside the toilet, skin cold and hot and sweating and shivering as he heaves his stomach’s barren contents into the bowl. Will’s words echo in him, across fifty-five miles and less than an hour, and Hannibal wonders if he had stayed quiet, if he should have trusted then too, if he had stopped fighting, moving, breathing -

Hannibal shakes his head, lips curling into his mouth, rancid with bile, and expels a sound that could be his own voice if he could recognize what it’s become in intervening years. They seem so few now, when so much is suddenly the same.

He is exhausted. He is so tired he can barely sit up, and so he doesn’t. He slips to his back on the cool tile floor and lets his eyes close. His pulse pounds behind his eyelids, brief hums of red as his heart reminds him he’s still alive. He shouldn’t be, but he is. He doesn’t deserve to be, but he is.

Thoughts that have voices of people he had long thought forgotten, long thought gone, remind him what he was, remind him that he can never be anything else, that his past will always, always haunt him and he cannot escape it. He is nothing. He is worthless. He is a thing to fuck and a body to break and skin to tear and nothing nothing nothing -

Hannibal wakes to the sound of his alarm quietly beeping in the other room. It must be early enough for him to head out to work, from Wolf Trap, another few hours, then, until he is on duty. His throat feels like someone poured acid down it, his lungs much the same. He can barely move and for a moment considers calling in ill before he realizes that he could call, but he would say nothing.

The laugh that pulls from him is rough, more a hack than a sound of amusement, but he can’t stop it once it starts, once it shakes his entire form and curls Hannibal into a ball on the floor of his tiny bathroom. He can’t stop. And soon the hacking becomes sobbing, and his cheeks warm with trails of hot tears slipping through the paths of old dried ones.

What is he, here?

What is he, anywhere?

He aches for Will. He aches to breathe, to sleep, to become himself again. He makes another sound, a little wail of pain, and forces himself to stand, to stumble to the sink. He cups his hands beneath the running tap and drinks his fill, clearing the filth from his mouth, from against his skin. He doesn’t look in the mirror before turning the tap off. He just goes to turn his alarm off.

He lets it buzz for another minute beneath his fingers before finally quieting it. Its sound brings to his tongue the dust of the library in which he studied and the scent of latex. He feels unclean, phantom ectoplasms of lubricant and sweat and semen against his skin. He told Will, more than once, that it was only a matter of time until this happened. Frederick Chilton too confirmed it, cool spite in his tone. Recidivism rates in sex work are staggeringly high, he cautioned, and the cycles of violence extraordinarily difficult to break. And Hannibal, Hannibal laughed at him. Hannibal imagined he could do it alone.

No.

He imagined that he could do it with Will.

Hannibal lays back dirty against his narrow bed, steadying his breath if only to stop himself from injuring his throat again with a useless, faltering sob. His spine aches as mattress springs dig into skin scraped raw and a swelling bruise, and he tilts to his side only to feel pain spread to his hip. Freeing his phone from his pocket, where it pressed to belted skin, he holds it before him, the screen black, and does not awaken it to check for messages.

Whether or not it’s Will’s fault hardly matters - stress, a psychotic break, nascent sadistic tendencies given too much yielding soil in which to root. Already Hannibal’s voice has been taken from him again, choked to gasping silence. Already Hannibal’s home has been upturned and his safety stricken.

Already his heart, spilled throbbing from his tongue when he whispered the word that Will swore he would always hear.

Already his heart, left to die on blue-grey lips.

 _Nice things should go to nice people_.

And when Hannibal’s patients come and find his office closed, they’ll leave and they won’t return. Word will spread of his unprofessionalism. No patients yields no means by which to live. No reputation yields no employment. Sell the office. Sell the car. Scrape by until the money runs out and then…

And then.

Hannibal wonders as to the wisdom in surviving simply to spite those who have tried to prevent it.

He feels sick.

He doesn’t even have a toothbrush here anymore.

Carefully, he sets gentle fingertips to his throat, feeling the cruel hot marks there. They will bruise, turn angry purple and then queasy, putrid yellow. The burn in his throat will fade to a pale throb he can remove with a clearing of his throat.

The external damage will be gone, like it never existed. Healed like the scars he now wears pale and barely felt from youth. 

He thinks of Will’s voice, when he had twisted the belt tighter. Thinks of the growl and hiss within it that was not Will’s at all. He had sounded hollow. He had sounded like a machine with a metronome heart. He was not his Will.

His Will would never do this to him.

Hannibal swallows, wincing, and closes his eyes.

But he had, hadn’t he?

The same knee that had for years tucked against his own, spooned close in sleep, driven into his spine to break him. The same hands that adjusted his tie each morning and left it a little cooked, jerking the belt so tight the buckle left cuts against the back of his neck. The same voice that told him daily that he was proud. That he loved him. That Hannibal was his good boy and that he would never, never, he would _never_ do him harm.

That he would rather die before he ever lay hands on Hannibal that were not welcome.

Hannibal thumbs alight the screen on his phone. No messages. He watches it fade to dark and with it cools his blood, blackening to obsidian in the pit of his belly. Another movement of his fingers.

Light.

Dark.

Light.

Dark.

He knows the nature of the monster that Will faces. He knows it innately; it lives beneath Hannibal’s skin too. Oh, it takes other shapes, it makes different sounds, but it’s the same void-spun horror that revels in the smallest numbers of the night. Reminding one of one’s place. One’s mistakes. One’s choices. Will has met that creature of Hannibal’s.

When he told him he was going to kill a boy.

When he consumed that boy’s weapon of violence instead.

And every time, soft hands framed his face and warm words fell across his lips. _You are not that. You are more. I love you._

Light.

Dark.

Light.

Hannibal types from memory, his vision too unsteady still to focus so closely.

_In Baltimore. Unable to message last night._

He rests cool fingers against his throat in hopes of easing its throbbing. Hannibal knows he will need to tend it, to prevent infection, to relieve the superficial pain, and lessen the chance of any fresh scars forming.

He has enough already.

 _Please respond_ , he adds.

The message comes almost immediately, making the phone hum in Hannibal’s hand.

_I’m here._

Hannibal looks at the message, closes his eyes when he no longer sees it and allows tears to heat his face again. They will run out eventually, dry up. The phone hums again.

_Are you safe?_

Turning his head against the pillow, seeking out a cool spot not already dampened, Hannibal settles again. Will is alive, a vital first step - Hannibal nearly smiles at this, but the muscles don’t respond right.

 _Alone_ , Hannibal responds, _yes._

 _Hannibal_ \- a brief pause, the little icon indicating quick typing as Will continues - _If you believe nothing else, please believe that I love you. And I am so sorry._

He watches the words until the letters stretch to ribbons of light and shadow. They waver and blur and the screen darkens as his eyes close and his cheeks are wet and warm and an ugly sound fills the room. A sustained sob, ripping ragged from within, as his body frays and he unravels. Hannibal turns his face to the pillow to mute the sound but the muffled wail is worse and he jerks back to sit, sucking down air like a drowning man.

The words are still there, luminous, as he regards his phone.

No one should be remembered for their worst moment. No one should be distilled down to behavior born of a world outside their control. Not Hannibal, in his iniquities. Not Will, in his burdens. He misses him. He misses him so badly that his body coils tightly in on itself but no arms surround him, no voice settles soft against his shoulder. A little boy lost, no matter his age, his desire to go home as intense as his fear of the creatures born of shadow that Will so bravely stalks.

When his breath returns to him, the sun casts ellipses across the bed through the cheap plastic blinds. Hannibal forces his tired body to relax in inches, sliding his feet to the floor and hunching over his phone, held between his knees.

 _We need to talk_ , Hannibal types, _when I am able._

 _I will wait_ , comes the immediate reply, _as long as it takes._

Hannibal allows that to be the end of the conversation, locks his phone and sets it aside again and buries his face in his hands with a long sigh. His entire being is tired. To the bones and soul and everything in between. He sits long enough for his limbs to tremble and then he pushes himself up, to go to the kitchen and get a glass of water.

He decides to order in, a quick few taps on his phone has a mild lemongrass and mushroom soup prepaid from a Thai restaurant nearby, frequented often when he lived here. He adds a note asking that it to be left at the door should no one answer a knock, and goes to take a shower.

It takes a while for the hot water to come, but when it does, Hannibal climbs into the stall and curls in the corner, letting the water beat against his head, filling it with white noise. The last time he couldn’t speak, he had found his voice here, with the help of Will’s warm hands and soft breath, with the help of his presence, strong and stable and calm.

Without that support now, it feels impossible. Speaking, certainly, even finishing his shower suddenly an effort for which no energy remains in him. He draws up his knees with aching effort and rests his cheek against them, eyes closed beneath the cascade of water. He will need to check, or be checked, for internal injuries. The swelling is still enough that his breath comes in thin whispers; deeper tracheal damage cannot be felt so easily. In a flicker of exhaustion and desperation both, he considers calling Frederick. He is not a bad man, just a marginally stupid one.

And one who talks, and who would surely make the details of their visit known to any who would listen.

It seems fitting, when the list of Hannibal’s potential acquaintances runs so very short, that he be alone in pulling himself from the ground. But what he cannot have, he can imagine. A turn of his wrist dissipates Chilton’s smirk and Hannibal imagines instead that there are hands against his back. He leans against the shower wall, head on his arm, and manifests a hum beneath the phantom stroke of fingers along his spine. Tender around the bruise, slipping past scrapes, sinking into tired shoulders, Hannibal shivers tingling at the memory of touch against his skin.

Like a limb divorced from the body, whose movements are still known innate to the mind.

He concentrates on remembering the fingers in his hair, gently massaging his scalp, behind his ears, down his neck. Hannibal shivers, shifts to feel the water hot against his skin. He thinks of warm lips, familiar in their smile against his skin, he thinks of Will’s sleepy hums in the mornings when Hannibal turns in his arms and nuzzles him. He thinks of the good, the mornings and winter evenings, the laughter that would make them both weep and hiccup trying to catch their breaths.

He thinks of the years.

He thinks of the trust.

He thinks of Will and allows his breathing to ease to a steady, slow rhythm, the steam helping with the pain in his throat, soothing sore muscles to relaxation. He stretches his legs out and drops his head back and ignores the knock at the door.

His shower is eased with thoughts of his hands being other than his own, washing away the grime from his body, sweat and old semen and serous fluid. Hannibal even manages to wash his hair, though by the time he shuts the shower off he’s trembling tired again. He would curse could he find the right muscles to produce that sound.

Or any.

He doesn’t bother with the towel, long as it’s been there, holding himself up at the sink to regard not his eyes, but the spreading bruise of his throat. Like a collar he cannot remove, swollen graceless and leaking clear from the red stripes where the belt cut skin. Taking the dusty bottle of rubbing alcohol from the cabinet, Hannibal returns to bed to sit and tend his wounds.

He hardly feels the pain anymore.

By the time he’s done, the soup at his door is cold enough that he can attempt to sip it. Halfway through, he yields, and forcing himself to drink water - the pressure enough to push tears to his eyes - Hannibal returns to bed.

For two days, he lives this way. A charger left for those nights when work has kept him in the city keeps his means of contact alive, but he does not seek more than the occasional glow to remind himself of Will’s words. And on the third day, Hannibal has managed himself into clothes, ill-fitting slacks and a worn old sweater.

And he dials, rather than texts.

It takes several rings before Will picks up the phone, and it sounds like he had to run to get it. Outside, perhaps, with the dogs. In the bathroom, maybe. Or he was sleeping. Hannibal hopes that Will has had more luck sleeping than he has.

“Hannibal,” Will breathes. “I’ve missed you.”

At the sound of his voice, that breathy whisper, the desperation of it all, Hannibal’s throat snares shut. He draws a sharp breath and his lips part in silence, but he squeezes his eyes shut and imagines the vibrations of his throat, plucked like harpsichord strings.

“Hello, Will,” he murmurs, and though his voice is strained, still rubbed raw, Hannibal could weep for the sensation of it.

Will’s sigh comes as sweet relief, and for a long moment he doesn’t talk at all. And Hannibal knows that in that silence Will apologizes again, he tells him he loves him, he tells him he will do anything to fix this. He knows, and he sighs much the same, to allow those unspoken words to filter through the hum.

“Have you managed to eat?” Will asks him softly.

“Soup,” answers Hannibal. He revels in the sensation of rediscovery, how his ribs stretch and his chest swells with the sound of Will’s voice, how the muscles beneath his eyes lift when Hannibal smiles a little. “Like I’m in school again.”

He listens to the creak that carries through the phone, and it shoots a shiver down his spine. Bedsprings, on the rickety frame of the foldout in the living room. Hannibal wonders whether the dogs are with him. Winston, beautiful greying beast, is almost certainly at Will’s side.

“Have you?” Hannibal asks. “Eaten. You should. We could.”

Will swallows audibly and the laugh that huffs through the phone is gentle, almost nervous. Hannibal thinks of the first time Will had called him - the third, in truth, when he picked up - the attitude there, the sarcasm, and the nervousness that he could feel through the phone. He thinks of their first dinner.

“I would like that,” he says finally.

“Should I -”

“No,” Will interjects, voice gentling. “No, I’ll come.”

Hannibal hums, allowing the vibration to relax and settle in him. He recalls a small restaurant, low lights and privacy in their tables, and waits for Will to find a pen and paper before giving him the name and address.

“Tonight?” he asks.

“Yes. It may be a while -”

“Tonight,” confirms Hannibal. Before his nerves give, before the strength he’s found fades away to fear. Before he loses himself to his thoughts rather than in closeness to the only man he’s ever loved.

Still. Even still.

“Will you -” He begins to ask, but stops until Will encourages him with a little sound. “Bring the contract. Please. It needs revision.”

Another audible swallow, a harsh breath that Will realizes comes across as impatient through the phone and he covers the receiver. They still have it, beautifully handwritten, kept in a folder for years and years, untouched. And now to be revised. Or torn. Will would not be surprised should he see that paper mangled and destroyed.

He would deserve it.

His heart beats too fast and he nods, though he knows that hardly comes across through the phone.

“Of course,” he says. 

“Thank you.”

A minute passes of little more than quiet between them. Each seeks to listen for sounds the other makes, every breath a blessing, every creak or shift worthy of attention. It is hardly an easy peace, Hannibal knows what he has asked and what he will ask. He knows that the reaction is likely to be poor, and that if it is he will be brought to bear a harder choice than he ever imagined they would push the other to make.

To deny what has transpired would be worse. They cannot pretend that nothing occurred, not when Hannibal’s every whispered word sears in reminder of the one he spoke that went ignored. Were they to abandon reason for comfort, they would surely find the latter strained beneath the weight of words unspoken.

Hannibal’s throat clicks as he swallows, and murmurs, “Call me when you are there. I’m not far.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hannibal waits for the words, lips parted and eyes turned sidelong to Will, but when they never come and the waiter leaves. He smooths his napkin across his lap instead. Focused on easing out every crease, he knows it conveys nervousness and that he could resist, but the effort is beyond him now, when the pressure against his chest is smothering._
> 
> _He wonders if it will always be this hard._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

_I'm here._

Will waits in the car, phone against his knee, bouncing nervously up and down on the brake pedal. He'd had to break into his own truck and hotwire it to get here, his keys still in Hannibal’s possession. He couldn't rely on a taxi to get him here on time without issue or more money spent that was remotely viable.

Will jerks when his phone vibrates with an answer, and leaning to the passenger seat to get his bag, he leaves the truck unlocked and goes.

 _Be there in ten_ , it reads, and Will leans against the truck. Each passing minute mires his heart in dread. It jerks unsteady, like pulling one’s feet out of sucking peat, struggling to persevere for just a little longer, just a bit more, until -

Until Will doesn’t know. He anticipates that he may be able to sit, calm and collected, across from the man he loves and hear his accusations and know their truth. There is equal chance that he will no sooner see Hannibal, clever and proud and beautiful, and fall to his knees to plead forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve. For a moment Will considers leaving his bag in the car, the lovingly crafted and cared-for contract inside it, and claiming that he didn’t remember to bring it.

With regularity, they’ve read through it again, with Hannibal seated in Will’s lap as he did the first time he brought the agreement to him with shaking hands. Every year, for the first few. Every five, thereafter. Never has it been changed, never have they needed to do so.

Six minutes.

Will pushes off the door and makes his way to the restaurant. The name he doesn’t know, but the interior - he could laugh for it if he wasn’t sure that he would sob instead. It is the same place where they first met, fourteen - nearly fifteen - years before. The same restaurant, now renamed, where he snorted dismissively at the youth of the boy before him without any idea of who Hannibal was or who he would become.

Of course he would choose the same place to end this as he chose to begin it. Hannibal has always had a rich sense of irony.

Four minutes.

“No table, thank you - not yet,” Will clarifies, when asked. “I’ll need one for two but I’m waiting for someone.”

The flash of lights across the parking lot draws his attention as a taxi slows to stop.

He considers begging immediately. He considers turning to leave - surely if he is not here to hear the rejection, he can pretend it never happened. But he doesn’t. He cannot. Years and years with this man and Will owes him this honesty, he owes him time and patience and to listen.

Because he didn't, the time it mattered.

Hannibal steps from the cab in a dark suit, a pale dandelion scarf wrapped and knotted beautifully around his throat. He bends to thank the cab driver with a smile and when he straightens again - with a tiny wince that only Will registers, so long accustomed to reading the cues of Hannibal’s body - he turns to look towards the restaurant. 

Towards Will.

And it feels as though the floor has fallen from beneath Will’s feet. A relief so profound, seeing Hannibal again that he feels lightheaded. He watches Hannibal approach, regal and beautiful and proud, and smiles when he goes to the host to confirm a table for Graham.

Hannibal has never before felt so uncertain in entering a restaurant. No client has ever made each step feel as if he were walking on water, no meeting has made his grasp on the door so tenuous. Even those instances where the city’s health rating on the door was precariously low, but too little funds forced him to ignore the questionable scents within, have been more assured than standing now before Will.

It is unfair.

“Hello, Will.”

Hannibal’s silken purr is yet abraded from his voice, still sandpaper rough around its edges. He hopes it sounds attractive, in its own way, a smoke-rasped sultriness like Katharine Hepburn, perhaps. He wonders why he cares at all, considering why it is the way it is, until Will turns to him, brows lifted above blue eyes widened by insecurity and softened by the gentle glimmer of hope in his smile.

It is unfair, yes, that Hannibal cannot help but love him still.

“Hello, Hannibal.” Will’s voice sounds just as rough, though for entirely different reasons. He can barely breathe, he can barely stand still without trembling. Hannibal is here, again, alive and close and so, so beautiful.

He dare not touch him.

The booth Hannibal has reserved is at the back of the restaurant, tucked away enough to be private and comfortable. There are people around them but not many, it isn’t a busy evening for business and that makes Will breathe a little easier. They settle and get their menus, Hannibal orders wine and Will resists telling him that he may only have two glasses, and no more.

Hannibal waits for the words, lips parted and eyes turned sidelong to Will, but when they never come and the waiter leaves. He smooths his napkin across his lap instead. Focused on easing out every crease, he knows it conveys nervousness and that he could resist, but the effort is beyond him now, when the pressure against his chest is smothering.

He wonders if it will always be this hard, now.

“How are the dogs?” Hannibal asks, a safe question to begin.

Will laughs, a breathy thing and brings a hand to adjust his glasses, shrugging.

“Winston has decided to become my personal keeper again,” he says. “I’ve had to drag his bed nearer ours so he doesn’t have to limp so far to get to me when he feels the need.”

Will swallows, presses his lips together, raises his eyes. “They miss you,” he says. “Buster sits by the door waiting for the purr of your car’s engine to bark at.”

Hannibal meets Will’s eyes and smiles a little. “I have been bereft of his presence, atop my head at night.”

“He still sleeps on your pillow.”

“Of course,” Hannibal says. He draws a breath and concentrates on the image of strings in vibration, plucked by the press of air through his throat. “I miss them, equally. And you.”

“I miss you,” Will tells him, and those are the words that do not waver, the ones that hold his breath and his heart equally steady. Will watches Hannibal for a long moment before his lips work to hide a smile and he turns away.

“I had to hotwire the truck to get here,” he admits. “You still have my keys.”

Hannibal makes a small sound, a smile flickering wider before he nods to the waiter as their glasses are brought to the table, the bottle set alongside. He shifts to reach into his pocket, suppressing the lingering ache from moving in such a way, but Will watches, eyes darting. He notes the singular lines that draw alongside Hannibal’s eyes, the minute thinning of his lips.

Hannibal sets Will’s keys to the table, sliding them across before withdrawing his fingers to pour wine instead. “My apologies,” he murmurs. “I took them, unbeknownst, when I feared what may result of your coping mechanisms. It would not do to see you cut short by a stray deer or a sharp turn. I realized I had them only the day before last. I hope you’ve not been overly inconvenienced,” he says, aware of the clip of his tone, professional and crisp. He takes a sip of wine that seems to vinegar upon his tongue, and his brow furrows. “You must teach me.”

Will’s heart skips at the words, and he forces it to jog again. “Teach you -”

“How to hotwire a car. One never knows when it may prove a vital skill.”

Will laughs again, nodding as he takes the keys and pockets them, feeling the lingering warmth of Hannibal’s hand against them. He wonders if he can do this, this small-talk and awkward smiles. He wonders if he could beg, if only the one thing, to talk as they did once, to ask Hannibal to tell him what they are to each other now.

Instead, he takes the wine and breathes it in, takes a sip and lets it linger on his tongue, swallows.

“We didn’t have this one, last time.”

“Last time?”

“We were here,” Will confirms, watching Hannibal over the rim of his glass before taking another sip and setting it away.

This draws a smile from Hannibal that he does not shutter. It lingers long beneath his eyes, narrowing them gently, warming cheeks made pale to a dusky rose once more. “You remember.”

“I could never forget.”

A sigh curls from Hannibal’s lips with a whisper of sound. He feels as though his ribs are rending, snapping blade by blade from the centerpiece of his sternum, as if to spread outward like wings and reveal his shuddering heart, his clenched stomach. His fingers curl around the stem of his glass, and a curt shake of his head sends the approaching waiter away until summoned.

“Will, I -”

“I’m sorry,” Will whispers. “If you get up and leave now, if you - if we never speak again, Hannibal, please know -”

“I know,” he answers, interjecting gently. “I know the stress of your work became too much to bear. I know that you suffered a break, despite my attempts to guide you from it, and I know that you were not yourself then. I did not recognize you,” he says, voice lowering to a whisper, easier for him to speak past the strangulation of words in his throat, like a fist. Like a belt. “And I know that you have forgiven me worse offenses.”

“Nothing is worse than this,” Will breathes, eyes bright and on Hannibal, though the other does not yet meet them. “I broke something sacred. I should have known better than to agree to that, knowing how my mind was, that I wasn’t fully there, that I -”

Will closes his eyes and swallows again, letting his jaw work, trying to ease his breathing. He parts his lips with his tongue and bends to retrieve his bag, to hold it against his stomach. Not to leave, not to cover himself, but to have the contract near for when Hannibal asks for it.

“I can’t trust myself, anymore,” Will says softly. “I want to tell you that it will never happen again. I want to tell you that it has sobered me enough to never - never -” A hum, almost pained, and Will laughs, to ease the lump from his throat. To try. “I don’t ever want to lie to you.”

Hannibal watches the contract as it is produced, laid with letters upside-down from where he sits. He takes in the careful script, written a dozen times over to ensure it was without error. The words on it, he knows by heart, over years of reading them aloud, together.

Only distantly does Hannibal recall asking for it to be brought. Now it sits between them like a blade primed for seppuku, and he wonders how it will feel to see his soul sundered when Will sacrifices himself upon it in a shredding of aged paper.

“You will never what, Will?” Hannibal asks, gaze fixed on the pages.

Will watches the pages also, he can see the gentle smudges on it from when Hannibal had read it to him the first time, hands sweaty in his panic, fingers trembling, speaking only because Will had told him gently that he wants to hear. That he will listen.

“To never not listen,” Will manages, soft. “To never not hear you again.”

Gently, he pushes the contract closer to Hannibal, withdraws his hand and sets his bag to the ground. Hannibal takes the pages quickly, sliding them towards himself, a lightning strike to set loose the storm that has been building and must, surely it must pass. He does not take them from their protective plastic, he does not need to, but he keeps their promises beneath his hand and feels at least that miniscule pressure lift from his shoulders.

The decision now is his entirely. Perhaps it has always been, despite the countless voices whispering into his thoughts. He could himself render their contract void, and leave and never know the love of this man again. Surely he would make do without, he did for many years. He would, for many more, living in spite of everything behind him.

And every day he would wake and seek for Will’s body against his own, curled up behind or laid before. Every day he would open his eyes uncertain as to where he is, anticipating the familiar sounds and scents of their home around him. Every day, every day, he would miss him.

It would be no life at all.

“It is not the word, unheard, that I fear,” Hannibal says, his words measured twice as he speaks softly. “It is the ones that came before, when I knew that there was something amiss, and you assured me there was not. It was a falsehood, and I knew it then but I hoped to be wrong.”

Will’s breath comes all at once, and he does not inhale until his lungs burn with the pressure of not breathing. He nods, he knows. He should have known then. He did know then, he should have admitted then. His pride is what severed them, his pride and his determination to be wrong.

Carefully he reaches out, hand palm up, and waits to see if Hannibal will give him his hand in turn. A moment, another, and only when Will starts to slowly retract his hand does Hannibal set his own against it. Will shivers, entire body overcome with feeling Hannibal so near again, so warm, so familiar. Will gently closes his fingers around Hannibal’s and draws his hand near, ducking his head to press his lips to his knuckles.

He breathes Hannibal in, allows himself to feel the smoothness of his skin, the way it stretches over elegant fingers, the way veins shift like rivers beneath it. He allows himself this last kiss if nothing else, and relishes in it. When he pulls away, he’s smiling, though the agony in his face is clear as day.

“I’ll miss you,” Will tells him honestly, setting Hannibal’s hand to the table once more, and shifting to pull his chair out. “I’ll love you, always.”

His hand is caught, tight, held in place by Hannibal who leans across the table towards him. They remain just so, one foreshortened breath against the next, until Hannibal, wordless, shakes his head. He is seventeen again, he is younger. He is clinging to the tattered remnants of the only peace he has ever known, in the heart of the only man who has ever hurt him so much.

Who he has ever loved so much that he would forgive it.

He does. He knows suddenly and in silent, writhing pain that curls around his throat that he forgives Will, if forgiveness means togetherness and if togetherness means working through their own pasts and moving forward.

“Then love me,” Hannibal whispers, “and listen.”

Will watches him with wide eyes and breath held in his lungs. He watches long enough that when he blinks it feels too hot, it feels wrong that he would close his eyes against Hannibal at all. Carefully, he draws his chair close again, slips his bag to the floor.

“Okay,” he breathes.

Hannibal sighs out small but the snare releases as he does. As Will sits. As Will curls his fingers against Hannibal’s hand in response. He doesn’t care who watches when he brings Will’s hand to his mouth, lips parted against familiar fingers. He doesn’t care who sees what to them is bright as the sun piercing stormclouds.

“You know my pride,” Hannibal murmurs. They share a small smile, brief but whole. “You know then the effort it takes for me to say that perhaps I am not enough, Will. Not enough to cast away what haunts you, despite my attempts. And I know your pride equals mine, much as you hide it behind thick glasses and frumpy sweaters.”

Will ducks his head and hides his smile, but Hannibal only squeezes his fingers a little more.

“We must, together, find a way to purge those thoughts. There are conflicts of interest in seeing me for therapy, but Doctor Bloom, perhaps, would suffice. At least after cases like this,” Hannibal says, and he feels as if he is a child again, begging for an impossible peace, for a safety he perhaps, in the harm he has done during his existence, does not deserve.

Will listens. He hears. He understands. In truth, he had been thinking of leaving the bureau. They have enough, together, for him to be able to. They have enough, in truth, that he could teach only and never see a case again. But he knows that should he stay for that alone, Jack would find a way to have him in the field again. Jack always finds a way. And Will can never say no to it.

“I will call her tomorrow morning,” Will promises. “I know she has started to ease from her full client list but -”

“A favor,” Hannibal smiles. “For a friend.”

“She owes me enough,” Will laughs. And it’s easier, it is suddenly easier. He spreads his hands as Hannibal loosens his grip, grazing fingertips against his cheek. Hannibal tilts his head to rest against them, and closes his eyes.

He could sleep, here, just like this. He wants to never try to sleep without Will beside him again.

“I anticipated greater resistance,” he admits, lips curving in a warm murmurs against Will’s palm. “I certainly presented a greater fight when you suggested the same to me.”

Will laughs, ducks his head. “I am also more than twice the age you were when I suggested the same to you,” he points out. He strokes Hannibal’s cheek, again and again, turns to run his knuckles over it next. He is so beautiful, and Will can see him relaxing, just from this.

“I will do anything you ask,” Will admits after a moment, eyes slipping just away from Hannibal’s own. “Anything that would help, if it means you will allow me into your life again.”

In this, too, Hannibal feels small. But it is not the fearful helplessness of his childhood; it is not the rising rage of his teenage years. Despite the wounds he wears even now, in Will’s gentle touch, he feels safe.

Protected.

Loved and cherished.

And tired, so very tired, that he laughs against Will’s hand, just a rough sigh as he reluctantly sits straight again, folding their hands together. “We both must work on our stubbornness, still,” he says, turning his attention to the contact between them. “An amendment, then, that we will seek help not when we feel we need it, but when the other feels that we do. Without question. Without argument.”

Will’s smile warm his eyes, narrows them, and he nods, a slow incline of his head, like a bow, to accept the amendment. He knows that Hannibal will add it to the contract, with immaculate handwriting, when they are no longer at the restaurant. He trusts him to.

“As with arguments,” Will adds, “our chosen roles will not factor when such a decision needs to be made.”

“Yes,” Hannibal says, and in his relief, he all but melts back into his seat. Shoulders loose of the weight they were prepared to carry again, heart steady without struggle to keep it moving at all. He knows he should eat but he isn’t hungry. He knows it will be a waste of wine but he motions gently for the check despite.

Will lifts a brow, but it lowers again as Hannibal stands enough to lean across the table and press their mouths together, hand against Will’s cheek.

“I want to go home,” Hannibal whispers, when their lips part just enough to allow it. “And I do not wish to ever spend another night away from you. Please,” he sighs, “please take me home.”

Will shivers, lips parted and eyes barely open and nods, enough that their lips brush again, enough that he can feel Hannibal’s palm curl against his face more.

“Home,” he repeats, smiling a little wider. “In convoy, I’m afraid, unless you want to leave your car in Baltimore and have me drive you in.”

“If it remains where I’ve parked it with all its parts accounted for, I will not press my luck in leaving it unattended for as many days as I plan to sleep,” Hannibal murmurs, rueful, as he settles back to his seat. He leaves money for the wine, twice as much again as tip for the waiter’s trouble, and smiles as his hand is caught again, their fingers twined.

“A little longer apart,” Hannibal says, smiling softly, “to catch our breath and reflect. Will you take the contract? I will amend it in the morning, and we will review over coffee.”

“Of course.” Will smiles, drawing his thumb over Hannibal’s knuckles, again and again, gentle and loving, before finally, reluctantly, letting him go. He takes the pages carefully again, slotting them into his satchel, and clicks his bag closed. “Whatever you wish.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Will’s expression is one of utter adoration, completely overcome with the power of that one word. Permission. Allowance. Acceptance. Want._
> 
> _Lord._
> 
> _Is this how Hannibal feels when Will says such things to him?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> [Looking for more stories, sooner? Find out how you can get them via the [Whiskey & Blood Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/wwhiskeyandbloodd)!]

Will arrives in Wolf Trap before Hannibal, but already the house appears a home again, not the desolate and fading remnants it had become in the days past. Warm golden light heats the windows, and when he opens the door, the younger dogs trot out to relieve themselves in the grass, Winston and Buster moving more slowly behind. He salvages a cigarette from the pack stashed in his truck’s glove compartment, and has only half finished it on the porch when he hears the thunderous rumble of Hannibal’s car along the road.

For too many minutes, Will imagined he would not come. That fear would grip him, rightfully so perhaps, that their break could not be spoken in person and so would be a more distant, slow severing. He has rarely been so happy to be so wrong, stepping down the porch stairs again as Hannibal shuts off the lights and slowly unfurls from his seat.

“You would be proud of me,” he says, “or displeased, perhaps, to know that I now know a drive can be made from here to Baltimore in forty-five minutes.”

Will snorts, ashing his cigarette. He doesn’t offer one to Hannibal as he normally would, not with his throat so damaged, but he does watch him, every inch of him, as Hannibal moves towards the house again. He stops before Will and Will leans in to press his forehead to Hannibal’s collarbone, nuzzling there with a sigh.

“You know a shortcut and I hotwired the truck. I think this has been an interesting learning experience for us both.”

Hannibal hums, and sets a hand to Will’s hair. “My shortcut being far surpassing speed limit,” he admits, smiling a little when Will makes an unhappy noise. He tugs Will’s curls straight and relaxes them again, stroking gently. “It seems I’ve a penchant for living dangerously. I am braced for the dishes I will encounter in the sink.”

He steps forward and Will moves with him, a step back, room enough for Hannibal to duck his head and touch a kiss to Will’s brow. It is the only moment they have undisrupted before the dogs catch wind of him and barrel closer. Paws press against Hannibal’s thighs, staggering him gently as he lifts one and turns her as if in dance, scattering scratches in gentle greeting amongst them all.

Buster, notably, sits at a distance, and in seeing this, Hannibal murmurs, “He is angry at me, isn’t he?”

Will hums, watches his grumpiest and loudest dog sit on the bottom step leading to the house, on his hip more than his butt. Will thinks of how long Buster had shown his displeasure with Hannibal being around. He thinks of how genuinely distraught he had been when Hannibal didn’t come home.

“He holds a grudge, that one,” Will agrees, smiling when despite himself, Buster’s tail starts to thump against the step when they draw closer. “Hasn’t forgiven me the last few days of apparently badly home-cooked meals.”

“Spoiled,” Hannibal chastens the tiny dog. He starts to bend to him but crouches slowly instead, settling to his heels. He talks to Buster in Lithuanian, one of the only circumstances in which Hannibal ever speaks the language now, and Will need not be fluent in it to understand the tone of an apology. He watches amused as Buster stands, and allows Hannibal to lift him into his arms.

“I assured him that I would make breakfast in the morning,” Hannibal confides in Will, following in slow steps into the house when Will holds the door for him and the rest of their little family.

It is easier for now to speak of the dogs, of mundanities of their daily lives, stitching wounds closed with every word between them. It is easier, too, to focus on Buster’s familiar weight in his arms than the rush of memory carried in sight and smell and sound that rushes against him in the livingroom of the house.

Their home.

He knows the faded scent of tobacco that clings to it. He knows the rich animal aroma of the dogs as they return to their beds. He knows how the shadows fall when lit by only the lamp beside Will’s favorite reading chair and he knows the bed, its sheets unmade, where he has slept for over a third of his life. Nearly half, in fact, spent here, every night and every morning. Every weekend and every day they could schedule free together.

Hannibal looks towards where the belt last laid, and resents himself for doing so.

It isn’t there, now. Put away or disposed of, he isn’t sure. It doesn’t matter. Will helps settle the dogs, kneeling to pet them all, holding Winston’s face in both hands as the old dog wags his fluffy tail slowly, parts his jaws in doggish joy. Then Will stands, passing Hannibal with a gentle touch to the base of his back.

“I’ll start coffee.”

It’s hard to imagine that it’s only been a few days apart; it may has well have been years. Hannibal learns the length of the room again in languid strides, cradling Buster until he becomes fussy, and then releasing him to the bed.

“I think that I’ve been overeating,” Hannibal notes. “Or become lazier than I’ve realized.”

Will’s little kitchen noises stop for a moment. “Why?”

“The suits I keep at the apartment hardly fit anymore. It may be time to clean and restock it, considering the state of things.”

“It’s not a good apartment. It’s never been.”

“Mm, but water stains upon the ceiling have little bearing on my girth,” Hannibal remarks. “That is the state of things that seems to have gone awry.”

“It has been nearly a year since you visited it last,” Will points out, resuming the gentle stirring of the coffee in its pot on the stove. He doesn’t say anything more on the matter. He hopes it is more than a year, next time, he hopes that perhaps Hannibal will seek another place instead, one they can both be proud to stay at when they find themselves caught far from Wolf Trap. “People grow in a year.”

“I shouldn’t,” Hannibal points out, amused. “This much.”

Will snorts softly and raises his eyes, just to watch him. He is far from paunchy, far from large. Hannibal is healthy and tall, beautiful. Always so entirely beautiful.

“You look good,” Will tells him, taking the coffee from the stove and pulling down two mugs from the overhead cupboards.

Hannibal watches him pour, approaching as slowly as he explored the rest of the house, easing his breath with every step and letting slip free the memories of the last time he was there. The memories of so many years before run far deeper. The warmth of Will’s body against his own when Hannibal slips his arm around the older man’s waist runs far deeper, still.

“You did the dishes,” murmurs Hannibal against Will’s neck, eyes drawing up in pleasure. Will’s voice hums between them both and Hannibal spreads his hands against the soft flannel covering his stomach. “I look forward to coffee. A shower. Sleep, in our bed, again, with you.” He draws a breath, parting his lips with his tongue, and admits, “I do not look forward to disrobing, Will. I don’t want you to have to see it.”

Will tenses, but hardly from the denial. He will see, eventually, he knows. It will take a long time to heal. He will see and he will remember and he will never allow himself to slip to that again. But he says nothing, he turns to rub his cheek with Hannibal’s and hand him his mug, their fingers touching as he does.

“Coffee, then,” he murmurs, turning in Hannibal’s arms, taking up his own mug as well. “A shower for you, while I settle the dogs and lock up. And lights off for bed.” He smiles, or tries. He will do everything in his power to have them work through this, he will see Alana, he will ask for help and accept when it is given. He will keep his eyes closed entirely, if that is what Hannibal wants of him.

He loves him. His heart aches with just how much.

Hannibal remains close, only enough room for their mugs between them. He cradles his near and leans just to rest his head on Will’s shoulder, ignoring the static-sharp twinge of muscles in his back, the pull of chafed skin on his neck. The comfort in this smallness is worth whatever pain, and Hannibal notes when Will sets his hand to the small of his back, he does not bring it higher.

“I thought of you,” Hannibal confesses, and it is just that. An inalterable truth with its own resilience and shame both, his voice lowers to a whisper. It is easier to speak this way than to strain to do so out loud. Will’s fingers splay, thumb stroking. “Just so. As you were with me in the shower those years ago, after the incident. I felt your hands against my skin, I heard your voice as if it were beside me. You told me that I was strong. That I am.”

He draws a breath and sips his coffee, sucking it from his lips each in turn. “I may still have been in that shower now, very cold, one imagines, had I not had you there with me in spirit.”

Will laughs, a soft sound, soothing, and continues to stroke lightly against Hannibal’s thin shirt. He does not drink his own coffee, he sets it aside and brings his other hand to Hannibal’s hair, working gently through the strands.

“You are,” he confirms. “Very strong. Much stronger than I am.”

Will turns his head to rest his chin against Hannibal’s hair. He is tired, suddenly, bone-deep and heavy. He has missed Hannibal in his space, has not managed a good night’s rest since he had gone. He thinks they will sleep for days, in truth, now. Together.

Always together.

“I thought of how much I hated that I could not be there to comfort you, this time, as I had then,” he admits in turn. “I waited for your message, your call. I was terrified you wouldn’t write.”

“I slept,” Hannibal says, “immediately, or near enough, when I got there. I should have let you know -”

“It’s okay.”

“I worried what you might - what might happen,” Hannibal says, a hitch in his words enough to betray the fear even in recollection.

“It’s okay,” Will says again, and Hannibal doesn’t argue. When he sets his mug aside, they move together, Hannibal following Will from the kitchen and switching the light off behind them. Both drag their feet as they walk, their bodies made heavy in relief, as when a string pulled tightly is suddenly loosened. The excitement of the dogs has settled again; they know the movements of the house as well as the men who live there.

Hannibal watches them go to their beds one by one, but for Winston who remains where Will sleeps, and Buster, as ever, laying claim to Hannibal’s pillow.

“I thought many things,” Hannibal finally says, “that I regret having let enter my mind. It is a revelation to know what still resides in the recesses that in daily life seem so very far away.” He reaches for his scarf, fingers twined against the knot, and meeting Will’s gaze, hesitates. “May I?”

“Anything,” Will says, letting his arms uncross, his hands fall to his sides.

“Should I,” Hannibal asks instead. “You have seen me worse, but -”

“Not by my own hand.”

“No. Will it upset you?”

Will breathes a laugh, ducking his eyes, sucking his lips against his teeth. “I won’t lie to you.”

“Then tell me in truth.”

"It frightens me," Will admits. "It frightens me that I did that to you. But I need to see. To know that I did that, so that I can never do it again." Will watches him with a soft look before stepping closer, setting his hands to Hannibal's. 

He doesn't move them, he merely moves as Hannibal moves his own. Slowly, he works the beautiful knot loose, and slips one loop from his neck, the next, finally the last. Will looks at the damage he wrought. The dark bruising, following livid spiderwebs among a sea of scarlet and violet, the cuts and soft scabs. He doesn't reach to touch Hannibal, not the marks. Instead, Will takes a step back and sinks to his knees before him, pressing his forehead to Hannibal's stomach with a sigh.

“Please,” Hannibal whispers, shaking his head, but Will only presses closer, hands around Hannibal’s thighs, breath pooling hot against his belly. Hannibal lets his eyes linger on the room around them, the only real home he’s ever known, unmade bed and pale yellow lights, shared closet bissected into striped suits and simple shirts. When his breath finally leaves him, it’s with a shudder.

He can feel the belt around his throat, but when it tightens enough to draw a sound from him, it is not in Will’s hands that the leather is held. It is another, some unknown monster, an interloper to their home and unwelcome. Hannibal stills his trembling by sliding his fingers through Will’s hair, and gathering soft strands between them to tilt his eyes upward.

“I cannot forgive you,” Hannibal whispers, hushing Will’s weak sounds with a gentle noise of his own. “I cannot, because it was not you that did this. Please,” he says again, and his smile is small and it’s weak and it’s faltering and he holds it anyway. “Please, you told me to ask, do you remember? I’m asking - you, not he - please, please just hold me now.”

Will makes a sound, one of relief, one of softness. The forgiveness is heavy against him, it’s warm, it’s lovely, it’s welcome. It is something he doesn’t feel he has earned or deserved. Will doesn’t want to move, for a while, pressed warm and close here, safe and secure and comforted. But the request tugs at him like a fishing line hooked against his skin.

So Will’s arms slide slowly around Hannibal, around his legs as Will gently nuzzles his stomach. Then he kneels up, arms higher around the base of Hannibal’s back, then higher still, until Will is standing again, arms around Hannibal’s shoulders as he holds him near, brings a hand up to the back of Hannibal’s head to hold him closer still.

“Dear boy,” he sighs. “Sweet, beautiful, strong Hannibal.” Will nuzzles against him, lips drawing against a stubbled cheek. “I never want to let you go.”

Hannibal slips his arms around Will’s waist. Mouth against his throat, he sighs a breath held for too long - nights and days since the evening he was last here, begging to be choked. He would not voice his own complicit role in it, not now, but the guilt is there still. He asked for this. He triggered it. Whether or not he knew at the time any details of the case - he still, truthfully, does not - Hannibal knows he should have been sensitive and failed in that.

He accepts his role in this, and feels it eased beneath the arms that hold him close.

“A shower,” Hannibal murmurs, his words a request pressed beseeching to Will’s throat where his pulse beats rapid staccato against Hannibal’s lips. “With you, please.”

Will smiles, and hums warm against the man in his arms. For a while they don’t move, they sway a little from exhaustion but neither feel the urge to let the other go. But it is Will who pulls back first, Will who gently touches Hannibal’s face and slips his hand against Hannibal’s and leads them both to the bathroom.

There are two towels, as always.

There is a new curtain, because Will had been meaning to wash the other one, and finally found the time.

Will turns on the shower to warm and gently kicks the door closed so the dogs don’t come to disturb them. Then he turns to Hannibal, hands to frame his face again, pushing up on his toes to kiss him, soft and lingering. Hannibal parts the kiss only to sigh relief against Will’s mouth, his hands mirroring the motion to press to scruffy cheeks. He pulls Will close again. Hannibal’s back presses to the door and a low sound penetrates the tangle of their kiss, lips relearning the peaks and valleys of the other, breaths steady in an ebb and flow sighed against the other’s cheek.

Hannibal allows his hands to drift first, over graceful neck and past it to the broad ridge of his collarbones. He follows downward and button by button frees Will's chest, Hannibal's hips arching forward from habit alone, though his cock has yet to stir. It is contact he seeks, not consummation. Closeness rather than carnality.

“I missed you,” Hannibal whispers. “I love you.”

Will’s breath stutters and he smiles a little wider, eyes still closed, hand up to remove his glasses before he shrugs out of his shirt. He laughs a little more when Hannibal catches his hands, gentle, and presses them to his shirt instead - permission, asking.

Will keeps his eyes barely open as he works off Hannibal’s shirt. He lets his fingers splay in the warm hair on his chest, seek over soft nipples, down to his stomach, thumb catching gently against his belly button. 

“I’m glad you’re home,” Will tells him honestly, hand down to work the button and fly of Hannibal’s pants, next, not commenting on the lack of belt. It’s clear enough. He doesn’t grope, he lets his hands seek warm over Hannibal’s ass, smooth beneath the fabric of his underwear. He lets his wrists catch against the waistband of Hannibal’s pants and kneels to remove them, working on Hannibal’s shoes and socks before pulling his pants off of his legs and setting them away.

When Will starts to rise once more, it’s Hannibal’s hand against his cheek that stops him, little more than a touch, but it is enough. Will remains on his knees and watches as Hannibal takes in the sea-blue eyes and stormcloud lashes that he has loved for years and years and years. Hannibal prefers to be on his knees, eyes upturned to the man who pulled him fighting from the paltry life Hannibal once carved out, wherein he had made himself - as Will once stated - little more than a hole to be fucked.

Hannibal has never felt a particular pull towards God until he met Will, and at his feet he found an altar where he kneels gladly.

And so it is intoxicating, in the moment, for Hannibal to allow himself the pleasure of the martyr. Injured for his faith, wounded for his trust, and above all, made sacred for his suffering. Between his teeth, Hannibal holds his bottom lip, and he knows Will sees the movement with darkening eyes.

“A shower,” Hannibal whispers again. “But you will bathe me.”

Will’s lips part, his breathing slow as he watches Hannibal stand tall above him. There is steam from the shower, now, the water hot enough for them, but Will doesn’t yet move. He can’t. He finds that he wants to be nowhere but here, as he is, before his boy.

“Yes,” he sighs, eyes on Hannibal still, as he rises on his knees again and sets his thumbs against the waistband of Hannibal’s underwear, slowly peeling them down.

Hannibal is soft, still, lacking energy or impetus to harden but he watches rapt, regardless. Will presses a kiss to one thigh, the other, nuzzling nearer to sigh heat against the crevice of leg to groin. Hannibal curls his fingers into Will’s hair and tugs, just a little pull, but enough that Will’s eyes snap upward.

Obedient.

Ready.

Hannibal bites his lip again and arches from the door.

Will shifts back further and stands when Hannibal tightens his grip. Beneath the pressure of his presence, Will steps back as Hannibal bears down against him, their mouths together but not yet closed in kiss. From their first moments, eroticized in instructional phonecalls and the ready positioning of Hannibal’s body, they have felt drawn towards the other in this way. It stands to reason that the dynamics they have embraced in contractual terms would not fade now despite the cruelty shown in nights before.

Their love has always had within it the air of possession.

Neither could imagine it any other way.

Will steps backward, seeking with spread toes the interior of the bath, as Hannibal pursues after. Hot water spills against their skin, but despite his newfound position, Hannibal’s posturing wanes in a shudder. The shower spills slick against his skin, still raw, still tender, and he gasps, skin prickling.

Will allows him to take his time, to settle in the water, to press close to Will. He acts as nurturer as he waits for Hannibal’s unspoken instructions again. He can read the man like a book, knows him so well he can feel him even when he cannot see him. So he feels, lets his eyes close and feels Hannibal’s breath, the beating of his heart, listens to the sound of his breathing as it evens and settles, smells the warm sweat, the remnants of mild cologne…

He is beautiful. His boy, this clever, extraordinary man who loves him, to whom Will has given his entire heart.

Hannibal hums when he stretches under the spray, pressing closer to Will, entirely comfortable here to just connect, just feel skin against skin that he hasn’t touched in what feels like years.

Never again. Never, ever again.

“I love you,” Will whispers, eyes still closed, smile curving over his lips. Hannibal follows the gentle bend with his thumb, down the crease that lines from nose to mouth, up along the bridge of Will’s nose. Will’s eyes close and Hannibal continues to trace softly the contours of Will’s features, learning him again and again.

“You know,” Hannibal says, “of all that I questioned in the last few days, I never questioned that.”

Will pulls his lips between his teeth and releases them with a frail sound, a gratitude that brings him closer to Hannibal as much to keep standing as for nearness.

“Never once did I wonder if you love me. Never once did I imagine that you do not,” Hannibal tells him. “I have never doubted that.”

“And the rest?” Will asks, his words tight in his throat, whispered past the knot within. “The things you did question?”

“I questioned, and I decided. And I am here,” he says, kissing the words against Will’s wet hair, before reaching for the soap with a smile in his eyes. “My back? If you would.”

Will’s smile stretches the lines against his skin into familiar patterns, warm and welcome and lovely. He takes the soap and reaches for the loofa and brings a lather to his hands before motioning for Hannibal to turn. With a smile, he slowly shakes his head, and with a snort, Will wraps his arms around Hannibal to wash him that way instead.

He has grown broader, taller, a proud and strong man in the time he and Will have shared together. Will takes his time to massage over the muscles he can feel beneath smooth skin, is careful where he remembers marks and new bruises to be, letting his fingers work the lather gently against those, leaving the loofa to wash the rest of the man.

He raises an eyebrow when he reaches the base of Hannibal’s back, and Hannibal raises one back, smile quirking his lips. And slowly, eyes up to Hannibal the entire time, Will goes to his knees in the bath to wash the back of Hannibal’s thighs as well. A small but pleased, very pleased sound is his reward, as Hannibal lets his eyes slip closed.

Beneath his hand, Will’s curls wrap heavy with water around his gentle grasp. Across his skin, slick with soap, Will’s fingers are as familiar as his own. They spread wide around his legs, squeezing to work tense muscles loose beneath heat and careful touch. Against his bottom, Will’s hands curl again, but there is no insistence in the movement, no torrid intention, and Hannibal’s lips part on another little noise, relieved by the tender reminder of possession.

His breath cuts short, head held straight but mouth spreading to a grin, as Will seeks his way to the front of Hannibal’s legs. Hannibal spreads them a little wider, eyes opening again when Will hesitates.

“Are you seeking permission?” Hannibal muses, before adding with a mischievous delight. “Ask.”

Will’s laugh comes as a breath, warm against Hannibal’s legs, and he licks his bottom lip into his mouth. There is such a power to that word, he knows just one side of it. He knows the weight of it against his lips, he knows the burnt-sugar taste of it and how it seeps against his tongue when Hannibal fulfills that desire. And now he knows how it feels to be told it, how it feels to be made to ask.

Will’s heart speeds.

“May I give you pleasure,” he asks, “before I continue to wash you clean?”

Hannibal’s insides twist tighter in a thrill that ripples goosebumps across his skin. He laughs behind his hand in youthful pleasure, and wonders if Will could ever not make him feel like the giddy teenager that he was so rarely allowed to be. He hopes he always does, and with a narrowing of eyes, inclines his head graciously.

“Please,” he allows, his cock lifting once with a pulse of blood to fill it. Will is beautiful this way, beseeching gaze and hands spread against Hannibal’s thighs. He could not have imagined the pleasure that comes in seeing someone dominant become submissive for him, and Hannibal’s heart tugs faster against its moorings.

Will’s expression is one of utter adoration, completely overcome with the power of that one word. Permission. Allowance. Acceptance. Want.

Lord.

Is this how Hannibal feels when Will says such things to him?

He leans in, eyes hooding just a little as he sets one hand to the base of Hannibal’s cock, another to his hip and slowly takes him into his mouth. It is a languid suck, deliberately so; just the head, then pulling back, a little deeper, and pulling back. Will’s tongue curls around the thick vein to feel it pulse against him, stretching further to tease Hannibal with a tickling lick before retracting it entirely.

He worships Hannibal’s body as he always has, but now he is on his knees to do it, his own cock hardening between his legs, his mind nowhere but at the smell and taste and feel of the man above him. He moans, low and long, and feels Hannibal shudder beneath him.

Careful in his movements, Hannibal settles his shoulders to the shower wall. Will rises higher to his knees, accepting with a noisy suck the gentle thrust against his tongue. Bending his back, Hannibal finds his rhythm in counterpoint to Will’s own, pushing in as Will bobs low, rocking back when Will drags his lips to the head.

Eyes uplifted, fingers curling tight around the base of Hannibal’s cock, he holds him still as he spreads his tongue flat against the length of him. Each inch rasped in velvet shivers Hannibal harder; his knees jelly until he forces them straight. His dark eyes widen as Will teases the tip of his tongue into the slit, and with slow circling, licks beneath his foreskin, slipping it back to catch beneath the corona.

Hannibal groans, fisting Will’s hair as every muscle and nerve in his body snaps sparking bright. His breath comes short as Will hollows his cheeks and sucks hard against flushed, full skin turned scarlet.

“Good boy,” Hannibal murmurs, grin spreading wide.

Will makes a sound, entirely helpless, brows furrowed as he closes his eyes and parts his lips from around Hannibal. A thin pearlescent line of precome connects his bottom lip to the head of Hannibal’s cock, and slowly Will lifts his eyes again.

Yes, he thinks, he will be this for Hannibal always.

He will be this for Hannibal if that is what he wishes.

He turns his head to kiss against the side of Hannibal’s cock, sloppy, greedy kisses that suck the warm water from his skin as it spills against them both. Each noise carries up the length of Hannibal’s spine, pulling his spine straighter, his cock harder. It is hard not to see the appeal that Will finds in being serviced so; what is equally easy to see is how much Will enjoys being of service.

They may stay so, Hannibal imagines, their roles reversed with this sharp and sudden sundering. To his surprise, and despite the heady suck from Will below, the thought tugs at Hannibal’s heart. He does not trust himself to be so responsible; he would miss deeply being cared for in that way.

But for now, for now with Will’s lips reddened and swollen, for now with his mouth smeared glistening with spit that beads thick down his chin, Hannibal is entirely happy to indulge. He bends his wrist and Will’s curls are pulled straight. Holding him in place, Hannibal’s smile twists wide and he rolls his hips forward enough that he shoves himself from the wall. His back blocks the spray and he bends his knees a little as Will forms his mouth to a tunnel that Hannibal takes in firm thrusts, panting breathless.

“Will,” he whispers, lowering his free hand to hold Will’s jaw in his fingers. “Will, I’m going to -”

Will just hums, opens his throat further when Hannibal’s irregular thrusting turns deeper, slower to bring himself to completion. Will relishes in it, as he does any time he watches Hannibal take his pleasure, as any time he watches Hannibal stroke himself off, holding back and begging and then allowing himself to come, as any time he watches Hannibal take the pleasure of Will’s tongue, his fingers, his cock… he is beautiful like this.

Will sucks harder.

With a soft whimpered curse, Hannibal comes.

Will eases the sucking to gentle tonguing as he swallows, licking Hannibal clean, turning his face into the hand that cups it. He feels contented, he feels useful. He feels the same surge of wonder at seeing Hannibal reach his orgasm as he does when Will is not on his knees, and asking it of him instead.

Hannibal’s gaze softens, and his body in turn. Softly sweeping his thumb across Will’s mouth when his cock slips free, he takes in the man’s dark pupils and ruddy lips and wonders at his fortune. What occurred nights before seems so distant now, a bad dream that lasted too long after waking, but with every passing minute it fades a little more. He presses his palms to Will’s cheeks and brings him to his feet, to taste himself on Will’s lips in a trembling kiss.

The curiosity that drove him to dominance fades, too, and Will takes Hannibal in his arms as the younger man settles against him. With wordless hushes, Will cradles Hannibal close and takes up the soap again to wash with lather and his hands. Even as they rinse clean, Hannibal keeps his arms tucked under Will’s and wrapped around him. Even as Will stretches to shut the water off, Hannibal keeps his face tucked against Will’s throat.

“And you?” Hannibal asks, his words a sleepy murmur.

“Later,” Will whispers back, bending to kiss against Hannibal’s hair. “You’re barely standing.”

It’s so fond, so gentle. When Will reaches for a towel it is to dry Hannibal first. Then he gets another for himself as Hannibal leans against the wall, exhausted, breath slow and stuttering as he tries to keep himself awake.

The dogs are asleep by the time they return to the main room, and none come to bother them when they climb into bed. Buster shifts reluctantly before returning to resting his weight against Hannibal’s head, just against his shoulder too, when a wayward foot stretches free. Winston curls contented at their feet.

Will pulls Hannibal close, arms around him and letting Hannibal slot himself against Will as he always does, head beneath Will’s chin, feeling small, protected, loved, held.

“Tomorrow,” Will mumbles, “ _I_ will make us breakfast, and you will rest.”

Hannibal has to stir himself awake to speak, drawing in a sharp breath, and sighing it long against Will’s skin. He can feel Will’s pulse against him, steady as a metronome, familiar as his own heartbeat. In the warmth of Will’s embrace, Hannibal could weep in relief for the peace that finds them so easily.

“And I will wake, then, and fuss that you should come back to bed,” he murmurs, before sleep swallows him whole.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Will rests his head against Hannibal’s palm, allows himself to be held. For the weeks they have shared in quiet recovery, both have noticed a gentle tug for the roles to reverse, if a little. Nothing permanent, more often than not Will still has the power, with just his words alone, to have Hannibal bend as he wants him. But some mornings, some days or evenings or late at night, Will feels a pull to bend and arch and _ask_._
> 
> _And Hannibal is all too happy, in those moments, to make him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With love to our beloved beta [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/) and with enormous thanks to Taj, who trusted us to run rampant with their beautiful ideas.

Hannibal sleeps for much of the following day, waking only to allow himself to be fed - with a wry smile and distinct pleasure - and to use the bathroom. His sleepy fumblings are gently rebuffed, his hands pressed back to his chest and then kept there by Will’s embrace.

He doesn’t argue.

The day after he awakens, and it is with no small amount of alarm over his patients who have been bereft of their psychiatrist without warning. He calls every one of them, understanding those who are unhappy with him, reassuring those whose neuroses make them feel as if it was their fault. He settles on telling them that he was involved in an accident, and barring a few stroppy objections, he is forgiven.

And then he sleeps again.

Will is at his side near-constantly, but for occasional trips to the grocery store and walks for the dogs. Hannibal allows himself not only to be cooked for, but to be dressed in soft things, to be kissed at every opportunity, to be reassured when he wakes with a start and fists curled.

His voice returns to him with more stability, but does not lose the roughness at its edges.

His bruises begin to heal.

Will takes leave from the academy, citing a nervous breakdown, finding Jack sympathetic but with the edge of displeasure curling his voice. He is always unhappy when Will has to step away. He knows Will needs to, he can’t begin to imagine what he sees, but it also loses Jack a very valuable asset in catching killers no one else can understand. They have engaged in the dance of guilt and rebuff long enough that Will hardly feels pressure when asking for time.

He takes his time to keep the house clean for them both, to keep Hannibal fed, to bring him to health as Hannibal has so often for Will. It is uncommon for him to take the week, but it is clear enough he needs it. Will would rather he had made the choice on his own than have to command Hannibal to bed rest.

He tends his neck with salves and soft kisses, spends a long time in bed with Hannibal to keep him near, to keep him comfortable as he reads through papers and research, follows the news online on Hannibal’s tablet.

On the fourth day, when he returns from another grocery run, a few dogs in tow, he smiles to see Hannibal in the kitchen, dressed and working on something. Holst plays through the small house when Will opens the door, and he hums a few bars before setting the paper bags to the counter and leaning over it to kiss Hannibal on the cheek.

“Good afternoon,” Hannibal intones, keeping steady rhythm of his whisk against the side of the bowl that grows frothy with each quick stroke.

“It is,” Will answers, setting his chin on Hannibal’s shoulder, then turning his cheek against it.

Hannibal regards him from the corners of his eyes and smiles a little, looking away only to see the dogs pass through and settle, but for Buster who lunges atop a toy. Will’s hand against his hip draws Hannibal’s attention again, and he hums. “Are you well?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“That isn’t for me to answer,” Hannibal says, leaving the meringue to its peace and turning his back against the counter to watch Will from near. Will draws a breath and holds it, and already in that, he’s given Hannibal cause to lift a brow.

“I’m girding,” Will finally says. “Jack called again today. I didn’t answer.”

Careful fingers set to Will’s shirt, and Hannibal straightens the creases from it one by one, before smoothing his palms across the indigo plaid. He brings one to rest on Will’s shoulder, the other against his neck, thumb stroking through rough stubble.

“What can I do to help?” Hannibal murmurs, eyes uplifting in mischievous warmth. “Ask.”

Will rests his head against Hannibal’s palm, allows himself to be held. For the weeks they have shared in quiet recovery, both have noticed a gentle tug for the roles to reverse, if a little. Nothing permanent, more often than not Will still has the power, with just his words alone, to have Hannibal bend as he wants him. But some mornings, some days or evenings or late at night, Will feels a pull to bend and arch and _ask_.

And Hannibal is all too happy, in those moments, to make him.

“Clear my head of it?” Will asks him. “Fill me with your words instead.”

Hannibal searches between Will’s eyes, even when the older man’s gaze shifts just past him. Leaning near, their brows press together, each softly nuzzling the other’s cheek as Hannibal slips his hand to Will’s hair and grasps gently the back of his head. He has learned a great deal from his years in service to Will, asking for what he needs and taking what is given to him. He is happy in that place, when he allows his thoughts to quiet to the hum of a detuned radio, and knows that the man who loves him more than his own life watches over him.

He has learned. And he is to no small degree made curious by that power being left in his hands, in turn.

“It will be good for you,” Hannibal says, lips grazing Will’s ear, “as it is so often for me, to release yourself and your troubles. You will listen?” Hannibal asks, his words carried on a warm sigh. A shiver straightens Will taller and he nods, eyes closing. “And you will ask?”

“Yes,” breathes Will. He sets his hands to Hannibal’s chest, the heart within slowed as if in sleep. A smile narrows Hannibal’s eyes.

“What is your safeword, Will?”

“Cedar,” Will murmurs, still nuzzling warm against Hannibal while he is allowed. Then the fingers tighten in his hair and Will stops, an immediate response. It is strange, that he has spent his entire life entirely fulfilled by caring for Hannibal, taking his control, his troubles, his angst, and turning them into blissful peace within his magnificent mind. It is strange how easily he can fall into the opposite role, now, when a decade before neither would have considered it an option.

Hannibal presses a kiss to his cheek, unfurling his fingers and draping them across Will’s throat. They settle on his chest and apply just enough pressure that Will steps back once, a second time, and then a quick turn of wrist catches the fabric in Hannibal’s hand again.

“Put away the groceries, please, and see the dogs to the upstairs bedroom. I am going to finish and store my meringue as you do,” Hannibal says. “When you are done, you will wait for me beside the bed, hands folded behind your back.” A pause, as he presses his tongue to his lips and smiles softly. “Thank you, Will.”

Will swallows, feels his own smile mirror the warmth in Hannibal’s, and inclines his head gently before stepping back and feeling himself let free. 

He thinks of how - at the beginning of his discovery of what BDSM was and what it entailed, and what it meant, truly, to dominate - he was scared that everything he did with a partner would feel mechanical, scripted. He was scared that he would give a laughable instruction and find himself not only unheeded but uncared for. But in truth, Hannibal had never responded robotically, he was precise and careful and polite, as he was outside of their arrangement.

And even now, Will moves through the house not as though he is judged for every step, but as he does without and outside of their games together. He begins to unpack the groceries, working around Hannibal with a practiced efficiency, as two dancers who know the other’s rhythms so well. He puts away the perishables, then arranges the pantry to fit in everything he’d brought home. He stops, delighted when Hannibal offers him his fingertip with sweet meringue. Will sucks it clean, eyes narrowing, and passes Hannibal out of the kitchen.

He whistles for the dogs and bends to grab Buster to carry him upstairs. There, they settle to the warm pillows and the old couch they had dragged up there for the dog’s space to be more comfortable.

When he returns, Hannibal is still at work, washing the dishes and setting away his utensils and bowls. Will watches him just a moment more before making his way to the bed, stretching his arms up above his head, pushing up on his toes to arch his back in a graceful curve. Then he settles on his feet, finds his center, and folds his hands behind his back.

Hannibal hears the movements stop, and unseen, allows his smile to widen bright. It is a new and wondrous sensation to wield such power over another, and something that in some way, he has perhaps craved. There were times in his previous career in which a client wished him to be assertive, to say filthy things and act the part of a brat, but it was never requested with the desire that the client be made to submit. Instead, it was so that they could be brought to bear down against Hannibal in response, and force his submission instead.

There is a peace, in this, by compare, and a pleasant trepidation all at once. Despite how part of Hannibal fits naturally to the role, his current career requiring a degree of assertion, there are no barriers here of doctor and patient, no distance of escort and client. It is he and Will, and so requires finesse.

Hannibal dries his hands and folds the towel thrice, straightening his shoulders.

Will’s gaze lifts above his glasses as Hannibal enters. Long legs take long strides, languid, to carry him near. Hannibal sets a finger beneath Will’s chin and raises it, just enough that the position feels a little unnatural to hold, but he relinquishes a smile when Will does hold it, just so.

“Bare yourself, and then me.”

Will’s smile quirks just a little higher and he closes his eyes in lieu of a nod. Then he brings his hands to his shirt to work the buttons on it, careful fingers and quick practiced motions. He slips it from his shoulders and carefully folds it before setting it to the chest at the foot of the bed. Next, his pants, the belt quietly clicking as he lets it hang from his jeans and steps out of those. He peels off his socks and folds them one into the other and tosses the little ball to the chest as well.

He bends, legs straight and lovely, to slip down his briefs, baring himself for Hannibal to see as he slowly straightens up again, and takes the step necessary to set that article of clothing down as well.

When he turns to Hannibal, he is already blushing, warm and pleased beneath his glasses. He gives Hannibal’s clothes the same care he gave his own, and lingers close to bared skin, not disobeying by pressing kisses to it, but close enough to imply he wants to. He kneels to divest Hannibal of his shoes and socks and pants, he holds posture as he works his underwear off last, and sets that away.

Eyes up, smile warm and adoring, Will stands once more, facing Hannibal, the man he loves, the man who holds him entirely, and slowly folds his hands behind his back again. For a moment they stand just so, facing the other at arm’s length, beautifully bare and slowly stiffening, each heartbeat bringing blood to fill their lengths a little more, a little more. Hannibal feels his pulse thrum steady beneath his skin; he hears the same particular tenor of sound within his head as were he the one taking instruction instead.

“Do you feel it?” Hannibal asks, and without needing to say more, Will lets his eyes close and he nods, smile widening. “Good.”

His feet click against the hardwood floor as he comes closer, removing Will’s glasses with one hand and resting his palm against his eyes in their place.

“Stay,” Hannibal tells him. “Focus.”

As Will’s lips part in acknowledgment, Hannibal steps away, setting Will’s glasses to the nightstand. He goes then to the closet and selects a tie of broad slanted stripes in crimson and cream. He takes another as well, bright violet and threaded through with pale green paisley. Will’s shoulders straighten as Hannibal’s steps return him, and he sets the first tie to Will’s eyes, cinching it closed against his hair.

“I want you to feel, Will. Let your mind be quieted,” he says, his whisper circling Will as he comes to stand behind him, and sets the latter tie to his wrists. A grin inflects his voice, a low and raspy rumble. “And let your body be used.”

Will’s breathing comes with a shudder and a small sound. “Please,” he sighs. “It is yours to use.”

“Good.” A kiss to Will’s shoulder in reassurance as Hannibal gently binds his hands as they are, crossed behind Will’s back, fingers grasping the opposite wrist for comfort. He watches over Will’s shoulder, down, as Will grows hard from this, unable to see, soon unable to move. He is beautiful in his vulnerability. He is beautiful always.

Hannibal gently tugs the silken knot and Will obediently steps back, feet unsure as Hannibal guides him, careful so he doesn’t trip.

“Turn,” he says, and watches as Will does. He can’t resist kissing him in reward, a chaste little thing against parted lips. “Knee up to the bed, then the other, shift so your feet don’t hang over the edge.”

Will obeys this too, careful to keep balance as he moves, fingers flexing and curling where they’re restrained, goosebumps skittering over his skin in anticipation.

“I am going to help you bend, now,” Hannibal tells him. “I will hold your balance for you and you will bend to press your chest to the bed for me.”

Will curses softly, blush heating down his neck, now, as well. But he nods, accepting, agreeing, granting his own kind of permission for Hannibal to do this to him. He feels Hannibal gently grasp the knot again as his other hand settles between Will’s shoulder blades and pushes him down. And there, just there, that moment of vertigo that steals Will’s breath, caught in precarious balance on his knees, toes pointed for no other reason than to hold tension in his muscles. And then Will feels the cool sheets against his chest and lays against them, hips up and back bowed.

Hannibal gives consideration to the rafters of their home, and whether they could hold the weight required for suspension. A shiver tugs his cock harder at the thought, but this will do. This will more than do. He rubs his thumbs into Will’s shoulders, watching as blushing goosebumps scatter across his skin. Already, the tension that Will carries in his body has eased, his muscles loose but for the rhythmic coiling of anticipation, little shifts of hips that press his ass higher, that curve his spine in thrusts against the air.

He follows the slope of Will’s back with his palms, fingers splaying over his ribs. Will twitches, a foot lifting from the bed as he’s tickled, and he rubs his cheek against the bed as he sighs his laugh against the sheets. Grasping pointed hips, Hannibal squeezes. He squeezes Will’s thighs. He squeezes his ass and he revels in the flushed heat beneath his grasp, Will’s full-body blush darkening as Hannibal spreads him wide.

Will moans, dizzy with the wave-rush in his ears, fingers spreading within the silken restraint.

“Hannibal,” he begs, but there is only a hum in answer. Stroking his thumbs across quivering skin, Hannibal watches Will’s opening quiver beneath his attention, watches as his body responds in delight and embarrassment both to this exposure.

“Shy, gentle Will,” Hannibal praises him, near enough that his breath sighs heat against Will’s hole. The reaction is immediate, lip between his teeth, an animal keen rising high from his throat. Hannibal cups a cheek, and then brings the flat of his hand against it with a resonant slap. “Ask.”

“Hannibal,” he manages, again, and another sharp slap is his answer. Will knows, from his own training of the beautiful man behind him, from everything they have together, that that is hardly an answer. “Please - _oh_ -” Will bites his lip and releases it again, breath shuddering in pleasure as he tenses for another spank that doesn’t come, not yet. 

“Please lick me open,” Will whispers. “Spread me wide and make me hold still.” Will shivers, clenching and relaxing again, knowing Hannibal can see, knowing that he is specifically watching. “Remind me to, if I move, by voice and hand both until I obey again.”

A warm kiss against each cheek is his reward, lingering hot, lips parted and teeth grazing the pert curves of Will’s ass. He groans low when Hannibal nuzzles inward, drawing his nose against fine hairs and silky skin, tracing a single circle with the tip of his tongue.

“Beg,” Hannibal tells him, voice tilting rough. Already he is learning to use the change in his voice to his advantage; already he is practicing how to use the subtle smoky rasp that trails along his words, just so. “Beg me to lick you.”

Will revolts against the request with a whimper, his toes curling, lifting a foot again. Hannibal grasps it without looking and pins his ankle to the bed, and Will’s cock swells dripping in response. It is in this that Hannibal finds his own pleasure, to see a man who carries himself with such restraint and pride brought to pleading; to hear this man let filthy things filter past societal shame and spill from his lips.

It is what Will loves being made to do, because unless he is, he will not do it.

It feels filthy and shameful and wrong and he loves how it trembles his entire body, loves how it pulls deep purrs from Hannibal’s lips. And he wants it, truly, he wants it terribly.

“Please,” he says, twisting his wrists just from habit of having them free, not in retaliation against the restraints. “Please, Hannibal, please lick my ass,” he shivers, delighting in the words and how they roughen his voice too. “Eat me out until I’m sobbing for release, and don’t let me - don’t - not until you say.”

Hannibal allows himself a few strokes, tugging his own stiff length as Will’s words ensnare him. Only that much, though, not more, not when there is so much more yet to do.

“Thank you, Will,” Hannibal murmurs, and with firm hands and a heady growl he spreads Will’s ass wide and flattens his tongue against him.

The response is immediate and enough to bring a few barks from upstairs. Will’s voice jerks high, cracking, a sustained moan held so long that he begins to shake beneath Hannibal’s mouth. Long swipes across crenulated skin, lips pressed to smear hot saliva against his hole. Hannibal curls his fingernails into Will’s tender skin and hums when Will’s trembling becomes a steady vibration, hips twitching beyond his control. Hannibal stops the movements, letting Will’s cheeks press to his own, and curls his fingers around the bony prominences of Will’s hipbones.

He lingers, his mouth motionless, until Will stills to obedience. Hannibal waits for his low and needy whine to quiet.

And then he curls his lips, and sucks.

Will parts his lips and pants against the sheets, feeling them dampen as his lips do, heat with the breath Will pushes against them, heavy and hot. He can feel his entire body trembling, muscles tensing and relaxing, one foot still held down by a decisive hand as Hannibal does exactly what Will begged for, and eats his ass like he’s starving for it.

Will moans again, helpless, and begs for more.

He can feel the blood hum behind his ears, the sparks fly behind his closed eyelids, he can feel himself blush and twitch and turn, he knows he’s leaking to the bed and that he can’t touch, that Hannibal won’t, not for as long as it takes to have Will sobbing from this. He squirms, just enough to earn a sharp slap against his thigh in reminder, and he spreads his legs wider in invitation.

“You undo me,” he whimpers. “Hannibal, please. More.”

Hannibal parts his lips and moans low, his own sound reverberant through Will’s glorious body bent before him. Age has not dimmed his radiance; at fifty he is as striking and commanding in his presence and beauty both as he was when he was younger. Moreso, perhaps, for the assurance that survival brings. Hannibal whispers love against Will’s skin and when he feels the undulating tension ebb, he presses his tongue deep.

Will’s back dips deep as he pants moaning into the bed. Presenting higher, wanton and wanting, Hannibal takes him in steady curls of his tongue, savoring the scent and taste of sweat and body that has been given to him, opened for him, brought to dizzying pleasure by Hannibal’s hands and mouth alone. Will’s breath hitches as he begs, slurring shameless in his pleas for _more, yes, this, fuck, Hannibal_ until sucking in a deep breath, Hannibal leans back from him.

In silence, Hannibal spits into his hand, the other still holding Will open before him. He strokes his aching cock, near-scarlet with arousal, veins drawn dark beneath delicate skin. Will is harder still, but Hannibal does not touch him, watching only as drip after long drip of viscous fluid falls to darken the sheets beneath.

The bed creaks beneath his weight and Will pants harder, fingers spreading and curling. Saliva too has pooled against the bed beneath him, and Hannibal thinks that Will has never been lovelier.

Until the next time.

And the next.

And when Will’s breath finally begins to settle, Hannibal thanks him softly again, and mounts him hard.

The sound Will makes is somewhere between a sob and a whine, loud and muffled only when he closes his teeth against the wet sheets beneath him. He trembles, already sore from holding such an unfamiliar position but god, _god_ it feels good.

With every rough thrust Will begs, thanks Hannibal for this, asks for more. He is entirely wanton, shameless in his demands for a fucking, a slut in getting it when it is given. Will shudders at the soft words that fall against him, praise and kindness, love, adoration, soft-toned reminders that Will is his to fuck and punish and pamper.

“Yours,” Will sobs, shaking. “I’m yours… yours, Hannibal, please - please, I need to come -”

A hard slap against his ass shatters his words to a sob. Hannibal leans back, watches for a moment to glory in watching his cock disappear into Will’s ass. He spreads him a little wider, until he can feel tired muscles quivering beneath his fingers, each push slow and deep, burying himself inside. Hannibal sighs shaking but the sound is kept soft; he will not allow Will to hear how weak he makes him, when what Will needs and wants is a firm hand.

“Thank me,” Hannibal tells him, lips curling as he swallows hard.

“Thank you -”

He’s spanked hard, again and again and again until his bottom blooms bright red from Hannibal’s hand. Each smack staggers Will’s moans, curls his fingers and toes tight, cinches his muscles snug around Hannibal’s cock. He shoves it deep and leans across Will’s back, using his greater height, his heavier body to pin him until even squirming is impossible. Skin snaps against skin as Hannibal speeds his thrusts, his dick digging deep each time, balls bouncing heavy against Will’s untouched cock.

Hannibal reaches to jerk the blindfold from Will’s eyes and he tosses it to the floor. Fisting Will’s hair he pulls his head from the bed, tilts it so that from the corner of wide and tear-reddened eyes Will can see the shadow of Hannibal’s movements in his periphery.

“Thank me,” he snarls, “specifically, Will. Thank me for fucking you.”

Will sobs, lips parted as thick tears pour from the corners of his eyes, down his elegant jaw, dripping from his chin. He bites his lip and trembles, letting out a helpless sound as Hannibal pushes into him deep and holds. It feels so good Will can barely hear, can barely breathe, can do nothing but clench around Hannibal and part his lips with a whine.

“Thank you for fucking me,” he breathes. “For eating my ass, for - for this,” Will trembles, eyes almost entirely black when they seek back to look at Hannibal. “Hannibal, please -”

When he comes, it is with a groan, poured thick as honey against Will’s back. Unsteady thrusts pulse into his hips, pressing a little deeper, a little further, as his orgasm untwists and he spills burst after hot burst inside him. Will’s gratitudes become whispers, his voice harsh from the strain, punctuated with pleas for release, with panting breath. Hannibal sets his cheek against Will’s back, sweat slick between their skin, and he brushes a kiss there before sitting back.

He bends Will’s head again, pulling his hair, and reaches between Will’s legs to stroke. The shudder around his softening cock is enough to milk another swell of seed from Hannibal, his cock coated in it, Will’s hole glistening. His fingers scarcely curl enough to hold Will’s length, throbbing in his loose grip. Each stroke yields a curse, each screw of his wrist a beg, until finally, after moments of torment that feel like hours, Hannibal sighs.

“Come for me, Will.”

Will needs no more coaxing than that. His own orgasm _hurts_ , the edging making it feel too hot against his insides, too sharp against his skin. His lungs burn, his bones ache, his thighs tremble from being spread so wide, mounted so hard. Will wonders if he has ever known bliss like this when another has had him.

He doesn’t think it’s possible.

His throat clicks hard when he swallows, saliva sticky and thick and he shakes, trying to catch his breath. With a moan, he goes when Hannibal gently sets him to the bed again, whispering sweet things and praise, fingers working on undo the tie holding him bound. Rough large hands massage Will’s wrists, return warmth to them, and Hannibal carefully lays Will’s arms to the bed slowly, to avoid them going numb from the bloodrush.

“Hannibal.” Will’s eyes are barely open, he cries out and hisses when Hannibal pulls free of him and straightens Will’s legs so he can relax to the bed. With a groan, Will turns over, and again, to reach Hannibal as he lays at his side, curling against him.

Hannibal’s smile comes easy now, eyes hooded in his own satisfaction, his own exhaustion. The strict mannerisms fall away just so, as Will wriggles closer with a little grimace of pain, and Hannibal surrounds Will in an embrace. Arms and a leg, wrapped over both of Will’s, chin set atop his head to ensnare him there as well.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, acknowledging the little fussy sound by tilting his head down instead. Their noses brush, their lips smeared with spit and tears join softly. Small touches, almost chaste, were it not for all that came before; in their gentleness, they are enough.

Hannibal rests his hand to Will’s cheek, though it still stings from the brutal spanking, it is cooler than the ruddy burn of Will’s skin. With careful attention, Hannibal wipes away a rivulet of tears. He smooths Will’s curls, paling with little shots of grey throughout, from his brow.

“Thank you,” Hannibal says again, eyes drawing up as Will laughs, his tears swelling and spilling again. “You honor me.”

Will laughs again and it is helpless, broken by sobs he can’t control as his body settles back to any sort of equilibrium. He feels alive, he feels exhausted. He feels so, so loved.

“I will never know what I did to get so lucky,” Will whispers, licking tears from his top lip before opening his eyes and raising them to Hannibal. “To have you love me.”

Hannibal watches him, knows the tremors that run through Will’s skin, now, knows the cold adrenaline that will make him feel a little sick before it feels exquisite. He knows just how heavy Will is going to feel, and how Hannibal will have to tend him, wash him with a warm cloth, make him drink water so he doesn’t have a headache the next morning.

Caring, nurturing, protecting.

“You loved me first,” Hannibal answers, and Will’s smile springs bright and sudden to his face, narrowing his eyes and eliciting a little sigh of a laugh. Will’s arms slip around Hannibal to hold him close as he settles against that heart that beats in time with his own.

“And I always will,” he promises.

**Author's Note:**

> cynosure  
> — (noun) cynosure is defined as an intense attraction to something for the brilliance, profound philosophical and physical beauty and interest it possesses. Due to this overwhelming appeal, this particular object or person calls an immense amount of attention and allurement.


End file.
